Introduction
The setting of Troilus and Cressida is the Trojan War, a story told by Homer on the utter fultlity of war, with familiar characters such as Hector, Paris, Helen, Aeneas, Ulysses (Odysseus), Achilles and Ajax. It is a two part story of a purposeless war and of agonizing lust. The war began when Helen was abducted from the Trojans and from Paris. But Shakespeare’s story begins seven years into the conflict and focuses more on the romantic involvement between Troilus and Cressida, whose relationship gets complicated when both sides decide to exchange a Trojan prisoner of war for Cressida, which devastates Troilus, especially when she willingly becomes flirtatious with the Greek soldiers and Diomedes in particular. In Homer’s original telling, Troilus was merely a parenthetical reference and Cressida did not exist. Their story was developed in medieval poetry, best known from Chaucer’s poem ‘Troilus and Criesyde’, very well known in Shakespeare’s day. Troilus and Cressida were to Shakespeare’s contemporaries as familiar a couple as Romeo and Juliet are to us today. The expressions ‘as true as Troilus’ and ‘as false as Cressida’ were deeply inbedded in renaissance culture. As far as the war itself goes, Hector, the great Trojan warrior, challenges any Greek soldier to a duel, and since Achilles is being petulant the Greeks choose Ajax to fight Hector, hoping this will ignite Achilles’ anger and cause him to return to the battlefield. His rage at having been overlooked does cause him to challenge Hector, but then Achilles has Hector murdered by a gang of Greek thugs. In a famous scene, the Trojans are forced to watch Achilles drag Hector’s dead body all around the battlefield behind his horse. With Hector dead the Greeks will soon send in their ‘gift’, the treacherous Trojan Horse, in order to end the conflict in victory over the Trojans.
Considered one of Shakespeare’s ‘problem plays’, Troilus and Cressida maintains a most serious intellectual tone of exquisite language and has always been considered a challenge to both read and perform. Written for a more sophisticated audience than what generally gathered at the Globe Theatre, it may have been intended for the lawyers at the Inns of Court and certainly not for the Royal Court of Queen Elizabeth. Most of the characters have a bitterness about them and Shakespeare portrays the warriors and lovers alike as vain, melancholic and witless anti-heroes. The only character portrayed as anything akin to heroic is Hector, who longs to face a worthy Greek opponent, but is underhandedly murdered by Achilles and his henchmen. Shakespeare clearly presents to his audiences a satire on heroism and war itself. The lovers are as much a decadent bunch of dysfunctional laughing stocks as are the warriors. Then there is the cynical Thersites, a bitter Greek slave / jester of negative exuberance, who becomes a mouthpiece for the futility of everything, but especially the war (“too much blood and not enough brains”) and all of its players and participants. This is a deliberately circumspect, problematic and bittersweet play by the Bard, but one with searing language, sharply drawn characters, profound themes and excellent speeches. It was never performed live, as far as we know, between Shakespeare’s day and the twentieth century. In 1609 the play was first announced in print as The History of Troilus and Cressida. In an introduction by the publisher it was shockingly declared a comedy. The first folio lists it as a tragedy. Nineteenth century British scholars finally labelled it a problem play. Dense and savage, profoundly disturbing, it is a worthy satiric examination of Homer’s exploration into the profundities of love and war.
Prologue
“In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece have to the port of Athens sent their ships, fraught with the ministers and instruments of cruel war. Their vow is made to ransack Troy, within where the ravished Helen, Menelaus’ queen, with wanton Paris sleeps – and that’s the quarrel. Priam’s six-gated city spurs up the sons of Troy. And hither am I come a prologue armed to tell you, fair beholders, that our play leaps over the vaunt and firstlings of those broils, beginning in the middle, starting thence away to what may be digested in a play. Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are; now good or bad, tis but the chance of war.”
Summary and Analysis
The plays opens with Prologue, armed as a soldier, here to tell us of the Trojan War, which began with the abduction of Helen by the Trojans and a Greek vow, supported by the launching of a thousand ships, to have her returned to them. Years later the conflict rages on and becomes the setting of our play. ‘Tis but the chance of war.’ Shakespeare immediately informs us that we are entering the mythological world of Homer’s The Illiad.
Act I (3 scenes)
Scene i
Troy, before the palace of Priam, King of the Trojans.
Enter Troilus (son of Priam) and Pandarus (uncle to Cressida)
Troilus: “I’ll unarm again. Why should I war beyond the walls of Troy, that find such cruel battle here within? The Greeks are strong and skillful to their strength, and to their fierceness valiant; but I am weaker than a woman’s tear, tamer than sleep, less valiant than the virgin in the night and more skill-less than unpracticed infancy. At Priam’s royal table do I sit; and when fair Cressida comes into my thoughts – Oh Pandarus! I tell thee, I am mad in her love.”
Pandarus: “Faith, I’ll not meddle in it. Let her be as she is because she is kin to me. Let her to the Greeks. And so I’ll tell her the next time I see her.”
Troilus: “Pandarus! Sweet Pandarus!”
Pandarus: “Pray you, speak no more to me.”
Exit Pandarus
Troilus: “Peace! Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair, when with your blood you daily paint her thus. I cannot fight upon this argument; it is too starved a subject for my sword. But Pandarus – O gods, how you plague me! I cannot come to Cressida but by Pandarus; and he’s as tetchy to be woo’d to woo as she is stubborn-chaste against all suit. Tell me, Apollo, what Cressida is.”
Enter Aeneas
Aeneas: “How now, Prince Troilus! Wherefore not afield?”
Troilus: “Because not there. What news, Aeneas, from the field today?”
Aeneas: “That Paris is returning home hurt.”
Troilus: “By whom, Aeneas?”
Aeneas: “By Menelaus.”
Troilus: ” Let Paris bleed. Paris is gored with Menelaus’ horn.”
Alarum
Aeneas: “Hark, what good sport is out of the town today?”
Troilus: “Are you bound thither?”
Aeneas: “In all swift haste.”
Troilus: “Come, go we then together.”
Summary and Analysis
Several important ideas surface in the first scene of Act I. We learn immediately that Troilus won’t fight the Greeks because of the war he is fighting in his heart within the walls of Troy. He is hopelessly in love with Cressida. He admits what a prize Helen must be that so much blood is shed over her abduction every day and claims that he cannot fight upon this argument. Many of the Trojans believe the Trojan War is absurd and that they should surrender Helen back to the Greeks and live in peace. Unfortunately, many other Trojans disagree and the war continues after seven bloody years. The clash of individuals in love and the two states at war will be a theme throughout the play. Pandarus is Cressida’s uncle and will be the go between on behalf of the two lovers. When Panadus tells Troilus ‘let her to the Greeks’ he is referring to the fact that Cressida’s father actually switched sides during the war and now sides with the Greeks. This is significant because eventually Cressida will join her father in a swap between her and a Trojan prisoner. Aeneas returns from the field to report that Paris has been injured in battle with Menelaus. Troilus responds by saying ‘let Paris bleed. Paris is gored by Menelaus’ Horn.’ Menelaus was married to Helen, regarded as the most beautiful woman in the world, when one day while he was away on business, Paris and Helen ran off together to Troy. This began the Trojan War, as Menelaus was cuckholded by Paris, which explains Troilus’ remark about Paris being gored by Menelaus’ horn, as the principle symbols of a cuckold are ram’s horns. At the very end of the scene Troilus does return to the battle with Aeneus. This is a very complex play and much will come of the dialogues and speeches throughout for us to digest and consider. Shakespeare is laying some early and essential foundation here at the start.
Act I
Scene ii
Troy. A street.
Enter Cressida and her servant Alexander
Cressida: “Who was that who went by?”
Alexander: “Queen Hecuba”
Cressida: “Whither she go?”
Alexander: “Up to the eastern tower, to see the battle. Hector today was moved, and to the field he goes, where every flower did as a prophet weep what it foresaw in Hector’s wrath.”
Cressida: What was his cause of anger?”
Alexander: “The noise goes this: there is among the Greeks a lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector. They call him Ajax.”
Cressida: “What of him?”
Alexander: “This man, lady, has robbed many beasts of their particular additions. He is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, and slow as the elephant. His valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion. He is melancholy without cause.”
Cressida: “But how should this man make Hector angry?”
Alexander: “They say that yesterday he cop’d Hector in the battle and struck him down, the shame whereof has ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.”
Cressida: “Hector is a gallant man.”
Alexander: “As may be in the world, lady.”
Enter Pandarus
Pandarus: “Good morrow, cousin Cressida. Was Hector armed and gone? Helen was not up, was she?”
Cressida: “Hector was gone, but Helen was not up.”
Pandarus: “Hector was stirring early.”
Cressida: “That we were talking of, and of his anger.”
Pandarus: “I know the cause too. And Troilus will not come far behind him. Let them take heed of Troilus.”
Cressida: “What, is he angry too?”
Pandarus: “Troilus is the better man of the two.”
Cressida: “O Jupiter! There is no comparison.”
Pandarus: “What, between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man if you see him? Hector is not a better man than Troilus.”
Cressida: “Excuse me.”
Pandarus: “You have no judgment, niece. Helen herself swore the other day that Troilus tis. She praised his complexion above Paris. I swear to you I think Helen loves him better than Paris. I swear she does. But to prove it to you, she came and put her white hand to his chin.”
Cressida: “Juno have mercy!”
Pandarus: “I think his smiling becomes him better than any man.”
Cressida: “O, he smiles valiantly!”
Pandarus: “Does he not. I cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his chin. Hark, they are coming from the field. Shall we stand up here and see them as they pass? Here is an excellent place. I’ll tell you them by their names as they pass by; but mark Troilus above the rest. That’s Aeneus. Is not that a brave man? He’s one of the flowers of Troy. But mark Troilus, who you should see anon.”
Cressida: “Who is that?”
Pandarus: “That’s Antenor. He has a shrewd wit, I’ll tell you. He’s one of the soundest judgments in Troy. When comes Troilus? That’s Hector. Now there’s a fellow! There’s a brave man, niece. Look how he looks. There’s a countenance.”
Cressida: O, a brave man!”
Pandarus: “Look you what hacks are on his helmet!”
Cressida: “Be those of swords?”
Pandarus: “Swords! Anything; he cares not. Yonder come Paris. Is that not a gallant man, too. Why this will do Helen’s heart good! Would I could see Troilus now.”
Cressida: “Who’s that?”
Pandarus: “That’s Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is.”
Cressida: “Can Helenus fight, uncle?”
Pandarus: “Helenus! No. Yes, he’ll fight indifferent well. Hark, do you not hear the people cry ‘Troilus’?”
Cressida: “What sneaking fellow comes yonder?”
Pandarus: “Tis Troilus. There’s a man, niece. Brave Troilus, the prince of chivalry! Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece; look you how his sword is bloodied and his helmet more hacked than Hector’s. O admirable youth! Had I a sister were a grace or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. Paris is dirt to him.”
Cressida: “Here come more.”
Common soldiers pass
Pandarus: “Asses, fools, dolts! Chaff and bran! Porridge after meat! I could live and die in the eyes of Troilus.”
Cressida: “There is among the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus.”
Pandarus: “Achilles? A porter, a very camel! Why have you any discretion? Have you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such, the spice and salt that season a man?”
Cressida: “Ay, a minced man; and then to be baked!”
Pandarus: “You are such a woman!”
Enter Toilus’ boy
Boy: “Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you at your house; there he unarms.”
Pandarus: “Good boy. Tell him I come. Fair ye well, good niece.”
Exit Pandarus
Cressida: “Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love’s full sacrifice, he offers in another’s enterprise. But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be, yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing: things won are done. Men prize things ungained. That she was never yet that ever knew love got so sweet as when desire did sue. Therefore, this maxim out of love I teach: achievement is command.“
Summary and Analysis
Cressida and her man-servant discuss Hector’s rage about having been bested on the field by the Greek warrior Ajax, who also happens to be Hector’s cousin. Pandarus arrives and spends much of the remainder of the scene shamefully promoting Troilus to Cressida, his own niece, claiming he is a better man than either Hector or Paris and suggesting that even Helen prefers Troilus to Paris. Clearly Pandarus is working hard on Troilus’ behalf. Once Pandarus departs, Cressida confides that she also is quite fond of Troilus, but she is remaining reserved and enjoying his pursuit of her, since ‘women are angels, wooing’, but ‘things won are done’. She believes ‘men prize things ungained’, when desire is greatest. Scenes in Troilus and Cressida will bounce between matters of war and personal affairs of the heart and soul of individual characters in both the Trojan and Greek camps.
Act I
Scene iii
The Grecian Camp, before Agamemnon’s tent.
Enter Agamemnon, Nester, Ulysses, Diomedes and Menelaus
Agamemnon: “Princes, what grief has set these jaundices over your cheeks? It is not matter new to us that we come short of our suppose so far that after a seven year siege yet Troy walls stand. Why then do you with cheeks abashed behold our works and call them shames, which are, indeed, none else than the protracted trials of great Jove to find persistive constancy in men.”
Nestor: “With due observance of thy godlike seat, great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply thy latest words.”
Ulysses: “Agamemnon, thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece, hear what Ulysses speaks.”
Agamemnon: “Speak, Prince of Ithaca.”
Ulysses: “The specialty of rule has been neglected; and look how many Greek tents do stand hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions. When the general is not like the hive, to whom the foragers shall all repair, what honey is expected? The heavens themselves observe degree, priority, place, proportion, form and custom, in all line of order. But when the planets in evil mixture to disorder wander, what plagues and what portents, what mutiny, what raging of the sea, shaking of earth, commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors divert and crack the unity and married calm of states quite from their fixture! O when degree is shaken the enterprise is sick! How could communities, schools, cities, commerce, crowns, sceptres, laurels, but by degree, stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untie that string, and hark what discord follows! The bounded waters should lift their bosoms higher than the shores and make a sop of this solid globe; strength should be lord of imbecility, and the rude son should strike his father dead; force should be right; then everything includes itself in power, power into will, will into appetite, and appetite, a universal wolf, so doubly seconded with will and power, must make perforce a universal prey, and last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, this chaos, when degree is suffocated, follows the choking. The general is disdained by him one step below, he by the next, that next by him beneath; so every step, exampled by the first pace that is sick of his superior, grows to an envious fever of pale and bloodless emulation. And tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, not her own sinews. Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.”
Nestor: “Most wisely has Ulysses here discovered the fever whereof all our power is sick.”
Agamemnon: “The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses, what is the remedy?”
Ulysses: “The great Achilles, having his ear full of his airy fame, grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent lies mocking our designs; with him Patroclus upon a lazy bed the livelong day breaks vulgar jests; and with ridiculous and awkward action he pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon, thy topless deputation he puts on, and like a strutting player he acts thy greatness. At this stuff the large Achilles, on his pressed bed lolling, from his deep chest laughs out a loud applause; cries ‘Excellent! Tis Agamemnon just. Now play me Nestor.’ And at this sport Sir Valour cries ‘O, enough, Patroclus; I shall split all in pleasure of my spleen’. And in this fashion all of our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes, achievements, plots, orders, preventions, excitements to the field or speech for truce, success or loss, what is or is not, serves for stuff for these to make paradoxes.”
Nestor: “And in the imitation of these twain many are infected. Ajax has grown self-willed and bears his head in full and proud a place as Achilles; keeps to his tent like him; makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war and sets Thersites, a slave whose gall coins slander like a mint, to match us in comparisons to dirt.”
Ulysses: “They tax our policy and call it cowardice, count wisdom as no member of the war. Why, this has not a finger’s dignity.”
Agamemnon: “What trumpet?”
Menelaus: “From Troy.”
Enter Aeneas
Agamemnon: “What would you before our tent?”
Aeneas: “Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?”
Agamemnon: “Sir, do you of Troy call yourself Aeneas?”
Aeneas: “Ay, Geek, that is my name.”
Agamemnon: “What’s your affair, I pray you?”
Aeneas: “Sir, pardon; tis for Agamemnon’s ears. I bring a trumpet to awaken his ear.”
Agamemnon: “Speak frankly, Trojan, he is awake. He tells thee so himself.’
Aeneas: “Trumpet, blow loud, through all these lazy tents; and every Greek of mettle, let him know what Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud. We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy a prince called Hector – Priam is his father – who in this dull and long-continued truce is restive grown; he bade me speak. If there be one among the fairest of Greece who holds his honour higher than his ease, who seeks his praise more than he fears his peril, who knows his valour and knows not his fear, to him this challenge: Hector, in view of Trojans and Greeks, shall make it good. He has a lady wiser, fairer, truer than ever Greek did couple in his arms; and will tomorrow, midway between your tents and the walls of Troy to rouse a Grecian who is true in love. If any come, Hector shall honour him; if none, he’ll stay in Troy when he retires and the Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth the splinter of a lance.”
Agamemnon: “This shall be told our lovers, Lord Aeneas. If none of them have soul in such a kind, we left them all at home. But we are soldiers; if then one is, that one meets Hector; if none else, I am he. Fair Aeneas, let me touch your hand; to our pavilion shall I lead you. Achilles shall have word of this intent; so shall each lord of Greece; from tent to tent you shall feast with us before you go, and find the welcome of a noble foe.”
Exit all but Ulysses and Nestor
Ulysses: “I have a young conception in my brain and tis this. The seeded pride in rank Achilles must now be cropped or breed a nursery of like evil will overbulk us all. This challenge that the gallant Hector sends, however it is spread in general name, relates in purpose only to Achilles.”
Nestor: “True. Achilles will, with great speed of judgment find Hector’s purpose pointing on him. Who may you else oppose who can from Hector bring the honours off, if not Achilles? Though it be a sportive combat, yet in this trial much opinion dwells; for here the Trojans taste our dearest repute with their finest palate; for the success shall give a scantling of good or bad unto the general; and in such indexes there is seen the baby figure of the giant mass of things to come at large. It is supposed he who meets Hector issues from our choice, as t’were from forth us all, a man distilled out of our virtues.”
Ulysses: “Therefore tis best Achilles meet not Hector. Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares and think perchance they’ll sell; if not, the lustre of the better yet to show shall show the better, by showing the worst first. Do not consent that ever Hector and Achilles meet. What glory our Achilles shares from Hector, were he not proud, we all should wear with him; but he already is too insolent. If he were foiled, why, then we do our main opponent crush in taint of our best man. No, make a lottery; and by device, let blockish Alax draw the sort to fight with Hector. Among ourselves give him allowance for the better man. If the dull, brainless Ajax fail, yet go we under our opinion still that we have better men. But, hit or miss, Ajax employed plucks down Achilles’ plumes.”
Nestor: “Now, Ulysses, I begin to relish thy advice; and I will give a taste thereof forthwith to Agamemnon. Go we to him straight.”
Summary and Analysis
This lengthy scene takes place entirely within the Greek encampment and we learn quite a bit. Agamemnon assembles his generals to find out why everyone seems so grim and disenchanted. Yes, its been seven years and Troy still stands but, according to Agamemnon, the gods are merely testing their mettle under duress. They must endure their difficulties and become stronger as a result of hardship. Then Ulysses, the quintessential ideas man, launches into his first great speech about how there is an order to everything that functions well in the universe. By degree everything and everyone has their place and so long as this ‘order by degree’ is maintained everything functions well. But once disorder rages, and individuals ignore their place in the greater scheme of things, then chaos ensues and everything disintegrates. Respect for authority is the glue that holds all societies together. Ulysses is essentially espousing the ‘great chain of being’ theory of conservative politics. Everyone has their place in society and must accept that designation or the entire society collapses. Ulysses is specifically referring to the Greek camp and the abhorrent behaviour of many of the soldiers. Agamemnon is at the top of the chain and yet Achilles lies around in his tent with his lover, Patroclus, and makes parody of Agamemnon, the other generals and the war at large. He refuses to come out to fight. And, as disorder tends to spread, many others are infected and the Greeks are hopelessly divided into dangerous and ineffective factions. Ajax also remains in his tent with his cynical slave / fool, Thersites, and they compare the great generals to dirt. Hence are the Greeks glum and dejected.
At this point Aeneas arrives from the Trojan camp to announce that their great warrior, Hector, is challenging any brave Greek to a one on one sporting combat. They accept his challenge and invite Aeneus to feast with them before returning to Troy. This challenge has given Ulysses a plan. Achilles will expect to be chosen to fight Hector, but Ulysses suggests the Greeks hold a lottery to see who will be chosen and then ensure that it is Ajax. This way, if Ajax is defeated the Greeks can claim he was not their best man. But the main thrust of this plan is that it might enrage Achilles out of his slumber and back to the battlefield along with his many brutish soldiers. Ulysses is the most philosophical of all of the Greek leaders. It will be his idea to bring in the Trojan horse full of Greek soldiers and offer it as a gift to the Trojans. This trickery will ultimately win the war for the Greeks. It is also Ulysses who is the hero of the companion piece to the Illiad, known as the Odyssey, as it follows his ten year journey home following the Trojan War. He is the wisest of the Greeks and we shall hear from him often.
Act II (3 scenes)
Scene i
The Greek camp
Enter Ajax and Thesites
Ajax: “Thersites! Thersities! Dog! Thou bitch-wolf’s son, can thou not hear me?” (strikes him)
Thersites: “The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord.”
Ajax: “Speak, then. I will beat thee into handsomeness.”
Thersites: “I shall sooner rail thee into wit and holiness.”
Ajax: “Toadstool, learn me the proclamation.”
Thersites: “Does thou think I have no sense, thou strikes me thus?”
Ajax: “The proclamation!”
Thersites: “Thou art proclaimed a fool, I think.”
Ajax: “Do not, porcupine, do not. My fingers itch.”
Thersites: “I would thou did itch from head to foot and I had the scratching of thee; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece.”
Ajax: “I say, the proclamation.”
Thersites: “Thou grumbles and rails every hour on Achilles. Thou art so full of envy at his greatness that thou barks at him. Thou should strike him. He would pun thee into shivers with his fists, as a sailor breaks a biscuit.”
Ajax: “You whoreson cur.” (strikes him)
Thersites: “Ay, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! Thou has no more brains than I have in my elbows; an ass may tutor thee. You scurvy valiant ass! Thou art here but to thrash Trojans, and thou art bought and sold among those of any wit like a barbarian slave.”
Ajax: “You dog!”
Thesites: “You scurvy lord!”
Ajax: “You cur.” (strikes him)
Thersites: “Do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do.”
Enter Achilles and Patroclus
Achilles: “Why, how now, Ajax! Wherefore do you thus? How now Thersites? What’s the matter, man?”
Thersites: “You see him there, do you?”
Achilles: “Ay, what’s the matter?”
Thersites: “Nay, look upon him. Regard him well.”
Achilles: “Well! Why, I do.”
Thersites: “But yet you look not well upon him. He is Ajax.”
Achilles: “I know that, fool.”
Thersites: “Ay, but that fool knows not himself.”
Ajax: “Therefore I beat thee.”
Thersites: “Lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! I have bobbed his brain more than he has beat my bones. This lord, Achilles, Ajax – who wears his wit in his belly and his guts in his head – I’ll tell you what I say of him.”
Achilles: “Peace, fool!”
Thersites: “I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not.”
Ajax: “O thou damned cur – I shall -“
Achilles: “What’s the quarrel?”
Ajax: “I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenor of the proclamation, and he rails upon me.”
Thersites: “I serve thee not; I serve here voluntarily.”
Achilles: “Your last service was sufferance; twas not voluntary. You are under an impress.”
Thersites: “Even so, a great deal of your wit too lies in your sinews. Hector shall have a great catch and knock out either of your brains. A fusty nut with no kernel.”
Achilles: “What, with me too, Thersites?”
Thersites: “Yes, good sooth. To Achilles, to Ajax, to -“
Ajax: “I shall cut out your tongue.”
Thersites: “Tis no matter; I shall speak as much as thou afterwards.”
Patroclus: “No more words, Thersites; peace!”
Thersites: “I will see you all hanged ere I come any more to your tents. I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools.”
Exit Thersites
Patroclus: ” A good riddance.”
Achilles: “Marry, this, sir. It is proclaimed that Hector, will with a trumpet twixt our tents and Troy, tomorrow morning, call some knight to arms who has a stomach. Farewell.”
Ajax: “Farewell. Who shall answer him?”
Achilles: “I know not; tis put to lottery.”
Ajax: “I will go learn more of it.”
Summary and Analysis
We meet three important characters in this scene. Thersities is a slave to Ajax and is appalled by the behaviour of most of the soldiers and of the entire war itself. He rails against everyone and everything and yet is not necessarily a villain. He merely speaks his truth in a most vulgar and abusive language and tone and his truths may be shared by many, although they are expressed with rage and curses. We might find ourselves very sympathetic to his railings, if not his venomous tones. We may recall from the previous scene that Ulysses and Hector are also fed up with the behaviours of Achilles and Ajax and the course of the war. In this scene Ajax is trying to learn from Thersites something about this proclamation from Hector, and Thersites simply insults him over and over again, even though he takes repeated beatings for doing so. It is extremely unusual to hear a slave speak thus to his lord, but Shakespeare has created him for the express purpose of being a foil to the absurdities of war and the excesses of the wanton behaviour of many of the participants. We also meet the two principle warriors in the Greek camp, Ajax and Achilles. Supposed heroes, they are both highly dysfunctional and egotistical figures who Thesites exposes again and again. Accompanying Achilles is his dear friend and lover, Patroclus, with whom he lays about all day in his tent. Thersites directs his venom at him as well. Homer depicted these Greek warriors as great heroes, but Shakespeare presents them as melancholic and egotistical bores throughout his play and employs Thersites to be his mouthpiece to this affect. By the end of the scene Achilles has informed Ajax of Hector’s challenge and how the Greek fighter will be chosen by lottery. Only we know better, as this is Ulysses’ plan to have Ajax fight Hector and thereby to induce Achilles back into the fight.
Act II
Scene ii
Troy. Priam’s palace.
Enter Priam, Hector, Troilus, Paris and Hellenus
Priam: “After so many hours, lives and speeches, thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks: ‘Deliver Helen, and all damage else as honour, loss of time, travail, expense, wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumed in hot digestion of this war – shall be struck off. Hector, what say you to it?”
Hector: “Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I, yet, dread Priam, let Helen go. Since the first sword was drawn about this question, every soul amongst many thousand dismissed has been as dear as Helen. If we have lost so many of ours, to guard a thing not ours, nor worth to us, what merit is in that reason which denies the yielding up of her?”
Troilus: “Fie, fie, my brother! Weigh you the worth and honour of a king, so great as our dread father, in a scale of common ounces? Fie, for godly shame!”
Helenus: “You are so empty of reason. Should not our father bear the great sway of his affairs with reason?”
Troilus: “You are for dreams and slumbers, brother. Here are your reasons: You know an enemy intends you harm; and reason flies the object of all harm. Nay, if we talk of reason, let us shut our gates and sleep. Reason and respect make livers pale and lustihood deject.”
Hector: “Brother, she is not worth what she does cost the keeping.”
Troilus: “What’s aught but as tis valued?”
Hector: “But value dwells not in particular will. Tis mad idolatry to make the service greater than the good. And the will dotes that is attributive to what infectiously itself affects, without some image of the affected merit.”
Troilus: “There can be no evasion from standing firm by honour. We turn not back the silks upon the merchant when we have soiled them. It was thought Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks; your breath with full consent bellied his sails. And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held active he brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness wrinkles Apollo’s. Why keep her? The Greeks keep our aunt. Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl whose price has launched a thousand ships. If you’ll avouch, tis wisdom Paris went – as you must need, for you all cried ‘Go, go’ – If you’ll confess he brought home a worthy prize – as you must needs, for you all clapped your hands and cried ‘Inestimable!’ – why do you now the issue of your proper wisdom rate, and do a deed that never fortune did – beggar the estimation that you prized richer than sea and land? O theft most base, that we have stolen what we do fear to keep!“
Cassandra: (within) “Cry, Trojans, cry!”
Priam: “What noise, what shriek is this?”
Troilus: “Tis our mad sister.”
Cassandra: (within) ” Cry, Trojans!”
Enter Cassandra raving
Cassandra: “Cry, Trojans, cry, lend me ten thousand eyes, and I will fill them with prophetic tears.”
Hector: “Peace, sister, peace.”
Cassandra: “Virgins and boys, middle aged and wrinkled elders, soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry, add to my clamours that mass of moans to come. Cry, Trojans, cry. Practice your eyes with tears, Troy must not be. Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all. Cry, Trojans, cry. A Helen and a woe! Troy burns, or else let Helen go.”
Exit Cassandra
Hector: “Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains of divination in our sister work some touches of remorse, or is your blood so madly hot that no discourse of reason, nor fear of bad success in a bad cause, can qualify the same?”
Troilus: “Why, brother Hector, we may not deject the courage of our minds because Cassandra’s mad. Her brain-sick raptures cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel which has our several honours all engaged to make it gracious. And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us such things as might offend the weakest spleen to fight for and maintain.”
Paris: “But I attest to the gods, your full consent gave wings to my propension, and cut off all fears attending on so dire a project. I protest, were I alone to pass the difficulties, and had as ample power as I have will, Paris should never retract what he has done.”
Priam: “Paris, you speak like one besotted on your sweet delights. You have the honey still, but these the gall; so to be valiant is no praise at all.”
Paris: “Sir, I propose not merely to myself the pleasures such a beauty brings with it; but I would have the soil of her fair rape wiped off in honourably keeping her. What treason was it to the ransacked queen, disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me, now to deliver her possession up on terms of base compulsion! There’s not the meanest spirt on our party without a heart to dare or sword to draw when Helen is defended; nor none so noble whose life was ill bestowed or death untamed where Helen is the subject. Then, I say, well may we fight for her whom we know well the world’s large spaces cannot parallel.”
Hector: “Paris and Troilus, you have both said well; and on the cause and question now at hand have glossed, but superficially; not much unlike young men, whom Aristotle taught unfit to hear moral philosophy. The reasons you allege do more to lead to the hot passions of distempered blood than to make up a free determination twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than adders to the voice of any true decision. Nature craves all dues be rendered to their owners. Now, what nearer debt in all humanity than wife is to husband? If Helen, then, be wife to Sparta’s king – as it is known she is – these moral laws of nature and of nations speak aloud to have her returned. Thus to persist in doing wrong makes it much more heavy. Yet, nevertheless, my spritely brethren, I propend to you in resolution to keep Helen still.”
Troilus: “Were it not glory that we more affected than the performance of our heaving spleens, I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood spent more in her defence. But worthy Hector, she is a theme of honour and renown, a spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds, whose present courage may beat down our foes, and fame in time to come canonize us.”
Hector: “I am yours, you valiant offspring of great Priam. I have a swaggering challenge sent amongst the dull and factious nobles of the Greeks will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits. I was advertised their great general slept. This, I presume, will wake him.”
Summary and Analysis
This entire scene is one long Trojan discussion and debate on the merits of keeping Helen in light of the Greek proclamation that if she is but returned, the Greeks will go home. Hector and Hellenus do not believe she is worth the price they have paid to keep her throughout these seven years of war with the Greeks over her abduction. They seem to be supported by their mad prophetess sister, Cassandra, who raves on and on about how Helen should be returned or the Trojans will face certain doom. Whether their sister is, in fact, mad or prophetic is a further part of their considerations. Troilus and Paris believe that keeping Helen is a matter of honour and that her worth mirrors her reputation as incomparable. Hector hears their argument and actually changes his mind and supports them and the maintaining of Helen in their camp. The question here really is does anyone or anything have intrinsic value or does it merely possess the value to which we ascribe it. On this point Hector is willing to change his mind and support Paris in his suggestion that Helen has come to be a great matter of honour and pride to the Trojans who stole her from the Greeks. On this alone she is worth keeping.
Act II
Scene iii
The Greek camp. Before the tent of Achilles.
Enter Thersites
Thersites: “How now, Thersites! What, lost in the labyrinth of thy fury? Shall the elephant Ajax carry it thus? He beats me and I rail at him. O worthy satisfaction! Would it were otherwise: that I could beat him, while he railed at me! Then there’s Achilles, a rare engineer! If Troy be not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till they fall of themselves. O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of the gods, if you take not that little, little, less than little wit from them that they have! After this, vengeance on the whole camp! I have said my prayers; and the devil envy says amen.”
Enter Patroclus
Patroclus: “Good Thersites, come in and rail.”
Thersites: “Thyself upon thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue! Heaven bless thee from a tutor and discipline come not near thee. Amen. Where’s Achilles?”
Patroclus: “What, art thou devout? Was thou in prayer?”
Thersites: “Ay, the heavens hear me!”
Patroclus: Amen.”
Enter Achilles: “Who’s there?”
Patroclus: “Thersites, my lord.”
Achilles: “Where, where? Come, what’s Agamemnon?”
Thersites: “Thy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what’s Achilles?”
Patroclus: “Thy lord, Thersites. Then tell me, I pray thee, what’s Thersites?”
Thersites: “Thy knower, Patroclus. Then tell me, Patroclus, what art thou?”
Patroclus: “Thou must tell who knows.”
Achillesa: “O, tell, tell!”
Thersites: “I’ll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands Achilles; Achilles is my lord; I am Patroclus’ knower; and Patroclus is a fool.”
Patroclus: “You rascal!”
Thersites: “Peace, fool! I am not done.”
Achilles: “Proceed Thersites.”
Thersites: “Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a fool; and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.”
Achilles: “Derive this; come.”
Thersites: “Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool; and this Patroclus is a fool positive.”
Patroclus: “Why am I a fool?”
Thersites: “Make that demand of the creator. It suffices me thou art.”
Exit all but Thersites
Thersites: “Here is such patchers, such juggling, and such knavery. All the argument is a whore and a cuckold – a good quarrel to draw factions and bleed to death upon. Now war and lechery confound all.“
Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Diomedes and Ajax
Agamemnon: “Where is Achilles?”
Patroclus: “Within his tent; but ill-disposed, my lord.”
Agamemnon: “Let it be known to him that we are here. He shunned our messengers; and we lay by visiting of him. Let him be told so, lest he know not what we are.”
Patroclus: “I shall say so to him.” (exits)
Ulysses: “We saw him at the opening of his tent. He is not sick.”
Ajax: “Yes, lion sick, sick of proud heart. You may call it melancholy, if you will favour the man. But, by my head, tis pride. But why, why? Let him show us a cause. A word, my lord.”
Patroclus: “Achilles bids me say he is much sorry if anything more than your sport or pleasure did move your greatness and this noble state to call upon him.”
Agamemnon: “Hear you, Patroclus. We are too well acquainted with these answers; but this evasion, winged thus swift with scorn, cannot outfly our apprehensions. Much attribute he has, and much the reason why we ascribe it to him. Yet all his virtues, not virtuously on his own part beheld, do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss; like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish, are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him we come to speak with him. Say we think him over-proud and under-honest. Go tell him this, and add that if he overhold his price so much, we’ll none of him. Bring action hither; this cannot go to war. Tell him so.”
Patroclus: “I shall, and will bring his answer presently.” (exits)
Agamemnon: “We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you.” (Ulysses exits)
Ajax: “What is he more than another?”
Agamemnon: “No more than what he thinks he is.”
Ajax: “Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better man than I am?”
Agamemnon: “No question.”
Ajax: “Will you subscribe his thought and say he is.”
Agamemnon: “No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable.”
Ajax: “Why should a man be proud? How does pride grow? I know not what pride is.”
Agamemnon: “Your mind is the clearers, Ajax, and your virtues the fairer. He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed devours the deed in the praise.
Enter Ulysses
Ajax: “I do hate a proud man and I do hate the engendering of toads.”
Nestor: (aside) “And yet he loves himself; isn’t it strange?”
Ulysses: “Achilles will not to the field tomorrow.”
Agamemnon: “What’s his excuse?”
Ulysses: “He does rely on none, but carries on the stream of his dispose, without observance or respect of any.”
Agamemnon: “Why will he not, upon our fair request, untent his person and share the air with us?”
Ulysses: “Things small as nothing he makes important; possessed he is with greatness, and speaks not to himself but with a pride that quarrels at self-breath. Imagined worth holds in his blood such swollen and hot discourse that twixt his mental and his active parts kingdom’d Achilles in commotion rages, and batters down himself. What should I say? He’s so plaguy proud that the death tokens of it cry ‘No recovery’.”
Agamemnon: “Let Ajax go to him. Dear lord, go you and greet him his tent. Tis said he holds you well, and will be led at your request a little from himself.”
Ulysses: “O Agamemnon, let it not be so! By going to Achilles that were to enlarge his fat-already pride. This lord go to him? Heaven forbid.”
Ajax: “If I go to him, with my armed fist I’ll pash him over the face.”
Agamemnon: “O, no, you shall not go.”
Ajax: “Let me go to him.”
Ulysses: “Not for the worth that hangs upon your quarrel.”
Ajax: “A paltry, insolent fellow!”
Nestor: (aside) “How he describes himself!”
Ajax: “Can he not be sociable?”
Ulysses: (aside) “The raven chides blackness.“
Ajax: “I’ll let his humours bleed.”
Agamemnon: (aside) “He will be the physician who should be the patient.“
Ajax: “I will knead him. I’ll make him supple.”
Diomedes: “You must prepare to fight without Achilles.”
Ajax: “A whoreson dog! Would he were a Trojan.”
Ulysses: “Achilles keeps thicket. Tomorrow we must with all our main of power stand fast; Ajax shall cope the best.”
Agamemnon: “Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep.”
Summary and Analysis
This scene takes place entirely in the Greek camp. After Thersites has his little soliloquy slagging Achilles and Ajax, he has a good go at Patroclus and Achilles, as they arrive. His wit is ever ascerbic, and his targets seem to almost enjoy his rancour at times. When the mighty lords finally assemble the question of the hour is will Achilles fight tomorrow. As it turns out, he will not even grace the assemblage with his presence, even though King Agamemnon demands his appearance. Clearly Ulysses was right about order disintegrating amongst the Greeks. Ajax relishes in the criticism of Achilles and the lords take delight in their snide remarks about Ajax.
In the six scenes thus far two have been about the romantic origins between Troilus and Cressida, one featured a good spat between Thersites and Ajax, and the other three focused on the various personal complications and dysfunctions within both the Spartan and the Greek camps. As we move into Act III we have a fairly good sense of what both sides are contending with in the Trojan War. The Trojans are divided over the question of whether Helen is worth the cost of the seven years of war and the Greeks are hopelessly splintered and seemingly bored with the conflict. Act III is has three scenes and the first two will advance the love story of the play’s namesakes before we return to the drama of Achilles swollen pride and whether he will ever fight again.
Act III (3 scenes)
Scene i
Troy. Priam’s palace
Enter Pandarus and a servant
Pandarus: “Friend, you – pray you, a word. Do you not follow the young Lord Paris?”
Servant: “Sir, I do depend upon the lord.”
Pandarus: “What music is this? Who plays they to?”
Servant: “To the hearers, sir.”
Pandarus: “At whose pleasure, friend?”
Servant: “At mine, sir, and theirs who love music.”
Pandarus: “Friend, we understand not one another. I am too courtly, and thou art too cunning. At whose request do these men play?”
Servant: “Marry, sir, at the request of Paris, my lord, and with him the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of beauty, love’s invisible soul.”
Pandarus: “Who, my cousin, Cressida?”
Servant: “No, sir, Helen. Could not you find out that by her attributes?”
Enter Paris and Helen
Pandarus: “Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company, and especially to you, fair queen! My lord, will you vouchsafe me a word? Your brother, Troilus, commends himself most affectionately to you, and he desires that you, if the Kings calls for him at supper, you will make his excuse.”
Paris: “Where sups he tonight? I’ll lay my life, Cressida. Well, I’ll make his excuse.”
Pandarus: “Ay, my good lord. Why should you say Cressida?”
Paris: “I spy.”
Pandarus: “You spy! What do you spy?”
Paris: “Love, nothing but love.”
Pandarus: “Sweet lord, whose a-field today?”
Paris: “Hector, Hellenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy. I would fain have armed today, but my Nell would not have it so.”
Pandarus: “You’ll remember you brother’s excuse?”
Paris: “To a hair.”
Exit Pandarus
Paris: “They’re coming from the field. Let us to Priam’s hall to greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you to help unarm our Hector.”
Helen: “Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris.”
Paris: “Sweet, above thought I love thee.”
Summary and Analysis
We return to the love story here, as Pandarus appeals to Paris to make an excuse for Troilus being absent from dinner with King Priam. Paris and Helen joke how they will cover for Troilus but they realize that Troilus will be with Cressida. We learn here that the relationship between our play’s titles couple is developing amid the war and intrigue we have witnessed in the past four scenes.
Act III
Scene ii
Troy. Pandarus’ orchard.
Enter Pandarus and Troilus’ boy
Pandarus: “How now! Where’s thy master? At my cousin Cressida’s?”
Boy: “No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him hither.”
Enter Troilus
Padarus: “O, here he comes. Have you seen my cousin?”
Troilus: “No, Pandarus. I stalk about her door. O gentle Pandar, from Cupid’s shoulder pluck his painted wings, and fly with me to Cressida!”
Pandarus: “Walk here in the orchard. I’ll bring her straight.” (exits)
Troilus: “I am giddy; expectation whirls me around. The imaginary relish is so sweet that it enchants my sense; what will it be when that the watery palate tastes indeed love’s thrice-reputed nectar?”
Re-enter Pandarus
Pandarus: “She is making her ready, she’ll come straight; you must be witty now. I’ll fetch her.” (exits)
Troilus: “Even such a passion does embrace my bosom. My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse.”
Re-enter Pandarus with Cressida
Pandarus: “Come, come, here she is now; swear the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me – why do you not speak to her? So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. Build there.”
Troilus: “You have bereft me of all words, lady.”
Pandarus: “Words pay no debts; give her deeds; come on, come on.”
Cressida: “Will you walk in, my lord?”
Troilus: “O Cressida, how often have I wished thus! O let my lady apprehend no fear! In all Cupid’s pageant there is presented no monster.”
Cressida: “Nor nothing monstrous either?”
Troilus: “This is the monstrosity of love, Lady, that the will is infinite, and the execution confined; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to limit.“
Cressida: “They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten and discharging less than the tenth part of one. They that have the voice of lions and the act of hares, are they not monsters?”
Troulus: “Are there such? Such are not we. Allow us as we prove. Troilus shall be such to Cressida as what envy can say worse shall be a mock for his truth; and what truth can speak truest not truer than Troilus.”
Cressida: “Will you walk in, my lord?”
Re-enter Pandarus
Pandarus: “What, blushing still? Are you not done talking yet?”
Cressida: “Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart. Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day for many weary months.”
Troilus: “Why was my Cressida then so hard to win?”
Cressida: “Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord. If I confess much, you will play the tyrant. I love you now; but till now not so much but I might master it. But, though I loved you well, I woo’d you not; and yet, good faith, I wished myself a man, or that we women had men’s privilege of speaking first. Stop my mouth.”
Troilus: “And shall.” (He goes to kiss her)
Cressida: “My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me; twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss. I am ashamed. O heavens! What have I done? For this time will I take my leave, my lord.”
Troilus: “What offends you, lady?”
Cressida: “Sir, my own company.”
Troilus: “You cannot shun yourself.”
Cressida: “Let me go and try. I have a kind of self resides with you; but an unkind self, that itself will leave to be another’s fool. I would be gone. Where is my wit. I know not what I speak. Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love; to angle for your thoughts; but you are wise – or else you love not; for to be wise and love exceeds man’s might; that dwells with gods above.”
Troilus: “O that I thought it could be in a woman to feed flames of love; but, alas, I am as true as truth’s simplicity, and simpler than the infancy of truth.”
Cressida: “In that I’ll war with you.”
Troilus: “O virtuous fight, when right with right wars who shall be most right! True swains in love shall in the world to come approve their truth by Troilus. Yet after all comparisons of truth, ‘as true as Troilus’ shall crown up the verse.”
Cressida: “Prophet may you be! If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth, when time is old and has forgot itself, when water drops have worn the stones of Troy, and mighty states characterless are grated to dusty nothing – yet let memory from false to false, among false maids in love, upbraid my falsehood when they have said ‘as false as air, as water, wind, or sandy earth’, yea, let them say ‘as false as Cressida.”
Pandarus: “Go to, a bargain made; seal it; seal it; I’ll be the witness. Here I hold your hand; here my cousin’s. If ever you prove false one to another, since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world’s end after my name – call them all Panders; let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressidas and all brokers Panderers. Whereupon I will show you a chamber and a bed; away!
Summary and Analysis
This is not a love destined to last and here are Troilus and Cressida at the summit of their relationship. There is no talk of marriage. Pandarus pushes them together as though it were a sexual attraction only: “Rub on; kiss the mistress and build there.” “Words pay no debts; give her deeds. Come on, come on.” “Are you not done talking yet?” “I will show you a chamber and a bed; away!” Troilus is so certain of his love and hence the phrase ‘as true as Troilus’ will be prophetic, as will the phrase ‘as false as Cressida’, given her self doubt and what we know about where this is headed. The scenes that follow will not be kind to them.
Act III
Scene iii
The Greek camp.
Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, Ajax, Menelaus and Calchas
Calchas: “Now, princes, for the services I have done, the advantage of time prompts me aloud to call for recompense. Appear it to your mind that I have abandoned Troy, left my possessions, incurred a traitor’s name, sequestering from me all that time, acquaintance, custom and condition made tame to my nature; and here to do you service. I do beseech you to give me now a little benefit.”
Agamemnon: “What would thou of us, Trojan? Make demand.”
Calchas: “You have a Trojan prisoner called Antenor, yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear. Often have you desired my daughter Cressida in right exchange, whom Troy has still denied; but this Antenor, I know that their negotiations will almost give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam, in exchange of him. Let him be sent, great princes, and he shall buy my daughter.”
Agamemnon: “Let Diomedes bear him, and bring Cressida hither. Calchas will have what he requests of us. Good Diomedes, furnish you fairly for this exchange. Withal, bring word if Hector will tomorrow be answered in his challenge. Ajax is ready.”
Diomedes: “This shall I undertake.”
Exit Diomedes and Calchas
Ulysses: “Achilles stands in the entrance of his tent. Please it our general pass strangely by him as if he were forgotten; and, princes all, lay negligent and loose regard upon him. I will come last. Tis likely he will question me. If so I have derision medicinal to use between your strangeness and his pride. It may do good. Pride has no other glass to show itself but pride.”
Agamemnon: “We’ll execute your purpose, and put on a form of strangeness as we pass along. So do each lord; and either greet him not, or else disdainfully, which shall shake him. I will lead the way.”
Achilles: “What comes the general to speak with me? You know my mind. I’ll fight no more against Troy.”
Agamemnon: “What says Achilles? Would be aught with us?”
Nestor: “Would you, my lord, aught with the general?”
Achilles: “No.”
Agamemnon: “The better.”
Achilles: “Good day.”
Menelaus: “How do you?”
Achilles: “What, does the cuckold scorn me?”
Ajax: “How now, Partoclus?”
Achilles: “Good morrow, Ajax.”
Ajax: “Ha?”
Achilles: “Good morrow.”
Ajax: “And good next day too.”
Achilles: “What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?”
Patroclus: “They pass by strangely. They used to send their smiles to Achilles.”
Achilles: “What, am I poor of late? Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune, must fall out with men too. But tis not so with me; fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy all that I did possess, save these men’s looks; who do, methinks, find out something not worthy in me. Here is Ulysses. I’ll interrupt his reading. How now, Ulysses? What are you reading?”
Ulysses: “A strange fellow here writes that man cannot make boast to have that which he has, but by reflection.”
Achilles: “This is not strange, Ulysses. The beauty that is borne here in the face the bearer knows not, but commends itself to others’ eyes.”
Ulysses: “The author’s drift expressly proves that no man is the lord of anything till he communicate his parts to others. I was much rapt in this; and apprehended here immediately the unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there! Now shall we see tomorrow – an act the very chance does throw upon him – Ajax renowned. O heavens, what some men do, while some men leave to do! How one man eats into another’s pride, while pride is fasting in his wantonness! To see these Greek lords! They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder, as if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast, and great Troy shrinking.”
Achilles: “I do believe it; for they passed by me as misers do by beggars – neither gave to me good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?”
Ulysses: “Time has, my lord, a wallet at his back, wherein he puts arms for oblivion. Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured as fast as they are made, forgot as soon as done. Perseverance, dear my lord, keeps honour bright. To have done is to hang quite out of fashion, in monumental mockery. Take the instant way; keep then the path, for emulation has a thousand sons. Then what they do in present, though less than yours in past, must overtop yours. Let not virtue seek remuneration for the thing it was; for beauty, wit, high birth, vigour of bone, love, friendship, charity, are subjects all to envious and slanderous time. The present eye praises the present object. Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, that all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax, since kings in motion sooner catch the eye than what stirs not. The cry went once on thee, and still it might, and yet it may again, if thou would not entomb thyself alive and case thy reputation in a tent.”
Achilles: “Of this my privacy I have strong reasons.”
Ulysses: “Tis knows, Achilles, that you are in love with one of Priam’s daughters.”
Achilles: “Ha! Known!”
Ulysses: “Is that a wonder? And all the Greek girls shall tripping sing ‘great Hector’s sister did Achilles win; but our great Ajax bravely beat him down’. Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak. The fool slides over the ice that you should break.”
Exit Ulysses
Patroclus: “To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you. I stand condemned. They think my little stomach for the war and your great love to me restrains you thus. Sweet, rouse yourself.”
Achilles: “Shall Ajax fight with Hector?”
Patroclus: “Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.”
Achilles: “I see my reputation is at stake; my fame is shrewdly gored.”
Patroclus: “O, then beware; those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves.“
Achilles: “Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus. I’ll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him to invite the Trojan lords, after the combat, to see us here unarmed. I have a woman’s longing to see great Hector in his weeds of peace, to talk with him, and to behold his visage.”
Enter Thersites
Thesites: “A wonder!”
Achilles:”What?”
Thersites: “Ajax goes up and down the field asking for himself. He must fight tomorrow with Hector, and is so prophetically proud that he raves in saying nothing. He stalks up and down like a peacock. The man’s undone forever; for if Hector break not his neck in the combat, he’ll break it himself in vain glory. He knows not me. I said ‘good morrow, Ajax’; and he replies ‘thanks Agamemnon’. What thinks you of this man who takes me for the general? He’s grown a very language-less monster. A plague of opinion!”
Achilles: “Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersides.”
Thesites: “Who, I? Why, he’ll answer nobody; he professes not answering. Speaking is for beggars: he wears his tongue in his arms.”
Achilles: “To him, Patroclus, Tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the most courageous Hector to come unarmed to my tent.”
Thersites: “What music will be in him when Hector has knocked out his brains I know not.”
Achilles: “Come thou shall bear a letter to him straight.”
Thersites: “Let me carry another to his horse; for that’s the more capable creature.”
Achilles: “My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred; and I myself see not the bottom of it.”
Exit Achilles and Patroclus
Thersites: “Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass with it. I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance.”
Summary and Analysis
Two topics are brought up in this chunky scene. First we learn that Cressida’s father, Calchas, has successfully arranged to have his daughter exchanged for a Trojan prison of war. So just as things have heated to a rolling boil between Troilus and Cressida we know that they are about to be permanently separated. Next, there is the question of troublesome Achilles. He refuses to fight the Trojans or even talk with Agamemnon. Ulysses has this idea to have all of the warriors give him the cold shoulder and then explain to him that his worth has been negated because now Ajax is the rising star and Achilles’ great achievements on the battlefield are virtually forgotten. What is happening now is all that matters. However, Ulysses does say that Achilles is capable of regaining his reputation if he would but come out of his tent and fight as he is capable. Patroclus agrees with Ulysses and implores Achilles to come around to this idea as well, which, by the end of the scene, he seems to do. So the brains (Ulysses) successfully manipulate the brawn (Achilles). Thersites ends the scene with his summary reflection upon the likes of the two great Greek warriors. On Ajax: “Let me carry a letter to his horse, for that’s the more capable creature.” On Achilles: “I had rather be a tick on a sheep than such a valiant ignorance.”
Act IV (5 scenes)
Scene i
Troy. A street.
Enter on one side Aneas and a servant and on another side Paris, Antenor and Diomedes.
Aneas: “Is the prince there in person? Had I so good occasion to lie long as you, Paris, nothing but heaven business should rob my bed-mate of my company.”
Diomedes: “That’s my mind too. Good morrow, Lord Aneas.”
Paris: “A valiant Greek, Aneas – take his hand. Witness the process of your speech, wherein you told how Diomedes, a whole week by days, did haunt you in the field.”
Aeneas: “Health to you, valiant sir, during this gentle truce; but when I meet you armed, as black defiance as heart can think or courage execute.”
Diomedes: “The one and the other Diomedes embraces. Our bloods are now in calm; and so long health! But when contention and occasion meet, by Jove, I’ll play the hunter for thy life with all my force, pursuit and policy.”
Aneas: “And thou shall hunt a lion. In humane gentleness, welcome to Troy! By Venus’ hand I swear that no man alive can love in such a sort the thing he means to kill, more excellently.”
Diomedes: “We sympathize. Jove let Aneas live, if to my sword his fate be not the glory. But in my emulous humour let him die with every joint a wound, and that tomorrow.”
Aneas: “We know each other well.”
Diomedes: “We do, and long to know each other worse.”
Paris: “This is the most despiteful gentle greeting, the noblest hateful love, that ever I heard of.”
Aneas: “I was sent for to the king, but why I know not.”
Paris: “His purpose was to bring this Greek to Calchas’ house, and there to render him, for the enforced Antenor, the fair Cressida. My brother Troilus lodges there tonight. Rouse him and give him note of our approach. I fear we shall be much unwelcome.”
Aneas: “That I assure you: Troy would rather Troy be borne to Greece than Cressida borne from Troy.”
Paris: “There is no help; the bitter disposition of the time will have it so. And tell me, noble Diomedes, even in the soul of sound good fellowship, who in your thoughts deserves fair Helen best, myself or Menlaus?”
Diomedes: “Both alike: he merits well to have her that doth seek her, as you as well to keep her that defend her. Both merits poised, each weighs nor less nor more, but he as he, the heavier for a whore.”
Paris: “You are too bitter to your country-woman.”
Diomedes: “She’s bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris: for every false drop in her bawdy veins a Greek life has sunk; for every scruple in her contaminated carrion weight a Trojan has been slain. She has not given so many good words breath as for her Greeks and Trojans who have suffered death.”
Paris: “Fair Diomedes, you dispraise the thing that you desire to buy; but we in silence hold this virtue well: we’ll not commend what we intend to sell.”
Summary and Analysis
Diomedes has arrived from the Greek camp to drop off Antenor to the Trojans and to bring back Cressida to the Greeks. The Trojans know that this will be devastating to Troilus but must be done. There is much interchange between the soldiers on both sides during times of peace. They are rather fascinated by one another, knowing each other quite well from the battlefield. They are very welcoming of one another, all the while acknowledging their desire to slaughter one another as soon as tomorrow on the field of war. Paris asks Diomedes who he believes is more deserving of Helen, himself or Menelaus, who she was taken from. Diomedes seems to think they are both fools for wanting a woman who has caused so much suffering and loss of life. So the debate about Helen is even exchanged between camps as well as within each one.
Act IV
Scene ii
Troy. The court of Pandarus’ house
Enter Troilus and Cressida.
Troilus: “Dear, trouble not yourself; the morn is cold. To bed, to bed.”
Cressida: “Are you weary of me?”
Troilus: “O Cressida!”
Cressida: “Night has been too brief.”
Enter Pandarus
Cressida: “A pestilence on him! Now will he be mocking.”
Pandarus: “How now! How go maidenheads?”
Cressida: “Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle. You bring me to do it and then you flout me too.”
Pandarus: “To do what? Let her say what. What have I brought you to do?”
Cressida: “Come, beshrew your heart.”
Pandarus: “Ha Ha! Poor Wretch! Have not slept tonight? Would he not, naughty man, let it sleep?”
Knock on door
Cressida: “Who’s at the door? Good uncle, go and see. My lord, come again into my chamber. You smile, as if I meant naughtily. But you are deceived. I think of no such thing.”
More knocking
Cressida: “How earnestly they knock! I would not for half of Troy have you be seen here.”
Pandarus: “Who’s there? What’s the matter?”
Enter Aeneas
Pandarus: “My lord Aeneas? What news with you so early?
Aeneas: “Is not Prince Troilus here?”
Pandarus: “Here! What should he be doing here?”
Aeneas: “Come, he is here, my lord. It does import him much to speak with me.”
Pandarus: “Is he here, you say? Its more than I know.”
Aeneas: “Come, come. You’ll do him wrong; you’ll be so true to him to be false to him. Go fetch him hither; go.”
Enter Troilus
Troilus: “How now! What’s the matter?”
Aeneas: “My lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you, my matter is so rash. There is at hand Paris, your brother, and the Greek, Diomedes, and our Antenor delivered to us; and for him forthwith, we must give up to Diomedes the lady Cressida.”
Troilus: “Is it so concluded?”
Aeneas: “By Priam and the general state of Troy. They are at hand.”
Troilus: “How my achievements mock me! I will go meet them.”
Exit Troilus and Aeneas
Pandarus: “Is it possible? No sooner got but lost? The devil take Antenor! The young prince will go mad. A plague upon Antenor! I would they had broke his neck.”
Enter Cressida
Cressida: “How now? What’s the matter? Why sigh you so profoundly? Where’s my lord? Tell me sweet uncle, what’s the matter?”
Pandarus: “Would I were as deep under the earth as I am above! Would’st thou had never been born! I knew thou would be his death! O, poor gentleman! A plague upon Antenor!”
Cressida: “Good uncle, I beseech you on my knees, what is the matter?”
Pandarus: “Thou must be gone, wench. Thou art exchanged for Antenor; thou must to thy father, and be gone from Troilus. T’will be his death. He cannot bear it.”
Cressida: “O you immortal gods! I will not go.”
Pandarus: “Thou must.”
Cressida: “I will not, uncle. I have forgot my father. I know no kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me as sweet Troilus. O you gods divine, make Cressida’s name the very crown of falsehood, if she ever leave Troilus. I will go in and weep, tear my bright hair, scratch my praised cheeks, crack my clear voice with sobs and break my heart, with sounding ‘Troilus’. I will not go from Troy.”
Summary and Analysis
A brief and tender love scene is quickly interrupted by a knock on the door that will change their lives forever. Aeneas is there to tell them that Cressida must be exchanged for the prisoner, Antenor. First Troilus is told by Aeneas and then Pandarus tells Cressida. It is a crushing blow. Pandarus tells several bawdy jokes about the night of pleasure enjoyed by Troilus and Cressida. They seem more full of lust than anything else, and Cressida is increasingly the Trojan counterpart to Helen, who Diomedes described earlier as a whore. And as Helen left Menelaus for Paris, so will Cressida choose to enjoy her Greeks once the exchange is complete. We must never forget that Helen is the reason this war has dragged on for seven bloody, senseless years.
Act IV
Scene iii
Troy. A street before Pandarus’ house.
Enter Paris, Troilus, Aeneas, Antenor and Diomedes.
Paris: “It is morning, and the hour prefixed for her delivery to this valiant Greek comes fast upon. Good my brother Troilus, haste her to the purpose.”
Troilus: “I’ll bring her to the Greek presently.”
Paris: “I know what it is to love, and would, as I shall pity, I could help.”
Summary and Analysis
Ironically, it is Paris, who was on the receiving end of Helen, who informs Troilus, who is on the losing end of Cressida, that the time has come to deliver her up to the Greek, Diomedes. Ouch!
Act IV
Scene iv
Troy. Pandarus’ house.
Enter Pandarus and Cressida
Pandarus: “Be moderate. be moderate.”
Cressida: “Why tell you me of moderation? The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste. How can I moderate it?”
Enter Troilus
Cressida: ” O Troilus! Troilus!” (They embrace)
Pandarus: “What a pair of spectacles are here! How now, lambs?”
Troilus: “Cressida, I love thee in so strained a purity that the blessed gods take thee from me.”
Cressida: “Have the gods envy?”
Pandarus: “Ay, ay, ay.”
Cressida: “And is it true that I must go from Troy?”
Troilus: “A hateful truth.”
Cressida: “Is it possible?”
Troilus: “And suddenly; where injury rudely beguiles our lips, forcibly prevents our locked embraces, strangles our dear vows, even in the birth of our own labouring breath we two, that with so many thousand sighs did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves.”
Aeneas: “My lord, is the lady ready?”
Troilus: “Hark, you are called.”
Cressida: “I must then to the Greeks?”
Troilus: “No remedy.”
Cressida:”A woeful Cressida amongst the merry Greeks. When shall we see again?”
Troilus: “Be thou but true, and I will see thee. Wear this sleeve.”
Cressida: “And you his glove. When shall I see you?”
Troilus: “I will corrupt the Greek sentinels to give thee nightly visitation. But yet be true.”
Cressida: “O heavens! Be true again!”
Troilus: “Here is why I speak it, love. The Greek youths are full of quality; they are loving, well composed and flowing over with arts and exercise. Alas, a kind of godly jealousy, which I beseech you call a virtuous sin, makes me afeared. Be not tempted.”
Cressida: “Do you think I will?”
Troilus: “No. But something may be done that we will not; and sometimes we are devils to ourselves. Come, kiss; and let us part.”
Cressida: “My lord, will you be true?”
Troilus: “Who, I? Alas, it is my vice, my fault!”
Enter Aeneas Paris, Antenor and Diomedes.
Troilus: “Welcome, Sir Diomedes! Here is the lady which for Antenor we deliver you; entreat her fair, and, by my soul, dear Greek, if ever thou stand at mercy of my sword, name Cressida, and thy life shall be as safe as Priam is in Troy.”
Diomedes: “Fair lady Cressida, the lustre in your eye, heaven in your cheek, pleads your fair usage; and to Diomedes you shall be fair mistress, and command him wholly.”
Troilus: “Greek, thou does not use me courteously to shame the zeal of my petition to thee in praising her. I tell thee she is as far high-soaring over thy praises as thou unworthy to be called her servant. I charge thee use he well; for by the dreadful Pluto, if thou does not, though the great bulk Achilles be thy guard, I’ll cut thy throat.”
Diomedes: “O, be not moved, Troilus, when I am hence I will answer to my lust. To her own worth she shall be prized.”
Exit Troilus, Cressida and Diomedes
Paris: “Hark, Hector’s trumpet.”
Aeneas: “How have we spent this morning! The prince must think me tardy and remiss, that swore to ride before him to the field.”
Paris: “Tis Troilus’ fault. Come, to the field.”
Aeneas: Yes. Let us tend on Hector’s heels. The glory of our Troy does this day lie on his fair worth and single chivalry.”
Summary and Analysis
Troilus and Cressida mourn their imminent separation. They vow to remain true to one another, although Troilus fears Cressida may succumb to the beauty of the many Greek youth. He has even more to worry about once he turns her over to Diomedes, who says that she will be his mistress and will answer to his lust. A trumpet sounds, indicating that it is time for the fight between Ajax and Hector.
Act IV
Scene v
The Greek camp
Enter Ajax armed, Agamemnon, Achilles, Patroclus, Menelaus, Ulysses and Nestor.
Agamemnon: “Here art thou in appointment fresh and fair, anticipating time with starting courage. Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy, thou dreadful Ajax, that the appalled air may pierce the head of the great combatant, and hail him hither.”
Ajax: “Now, trumpet, there’s my purse. Now crack thy lungs; blow, villain. Come stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout blood: thou blows for Hector.”
Ulysses: “No trumpet answers.”
Enter Diomedes with Cressida
Agamemnon: “Is not yonder Diomedes with Calchas’ daughter? Is this the lady Cressida?”
Diomedes: “Even she.”
Agamemnon: “Most dearly welcome to the Greeks, dear lady.”
Nestor: “Our general does salute you with a kiss.”
Achilles: “I’ll take that winter from your lips, fair lady. Achilles bids you welcome.”
Menelaus: “I had good argument for kissing once.”
Patroclus: “But that’s no argument for kissing now; for thus popped Paris, and parted thus you and your argument.”
Ulysses: “O deadly gall, and theme of all our scorns! For which we lose our heads to gild his horns.”
Patroclus: “The first was Menelaus’ kiss, this, mine.” (he kisses her again) “Paris and I kiss evermore for him.”
Cressida: “In kissing, do you render or receive?”
Patroclus: “Both take and give.”
Ulysses: “May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?”
Cressida: “You may.”
Ulysses: “I do desire it.”
Cressida: “Why, beg then.”
Ulysses: “Why then, for Venus’ sake, give me a kiss, when Helen is a maid again and his.”
Cressida: “I am your debtor; claim it when it is due.”
Diomedes: “Lady, I’ll bring you to your father.”
Exit Cressida and Diomedes
Ulysses: “Fie, fie upon her! There is language in her eye, her cheek, her lips, nay, her foot speaks and her wanton spirit looks out at every joint and move of her body. Set them down for sluttish spoils of opportunity.”
All: “The Trojan trumpet!”
Enter Hector armed, Aeneas, Troilu and Paris
Aeneas: “Hail, all the state of Greece! What shall be done to him who victory commands? Hector bade ask.”
Agamemnon: “Which way would Hector have it?”
Aeneas: “He cares not; he’ll obey conditions. If not Achilles, sir, what is your name?”
Achilles: “If not Achilles, nothing.”
Aeneas: “Therefore Achilles. But whatever, know this: valour and pride excel themselves in Hector. Weigh him well. This Ajax is half made of Hector’s blood. Hector comes to seek this blended knight, half Trojan and half Greek.”
Enter Diomedes
Agamemnon: “Here is Sir Diomedes. Stand by our Ajax. As you and Lord Aeneas consent upon the order of their fight, so be it.”
Ajax and Hector enter
Agamemnon: “What Trojan is that same who looks so heavy?”
Ulysses: “The youngest son of Priam. Not yet mature, yet matchless; firm of word; not soon provoked, nor being provoked soon calmed. Manly as Hector, but more dangerous. They call him Troilus, and on him erect a second hope as fairly built as Hector. Thus says Aeneas, one who knows the youth even to his inches, and, with private soul, did in great Troy thus translate him to me.”
Ajax and Hector fight
Nestor: “Now, Ajax, hold thy own!”
Troilus: “Hector, thou sleeps. Awake thee.”
Agamemnon: “His blows are well disposed. There, Ajax.”
Trumpet sounds
Diomedes: “You must no more.”
Aeneas: “Princes, enough, so please you.”
Ajax: “I am not warm yet; let us fight again.”
Diomedes: “As Hector pleases.”
Hector: “Then will I no more. Thou art, great lord, my father’s sister’s son, a cousin to great Priam’s seed; the obligation of our blood forbids a gory emulation twixt us. Let me embrace thee, Ajax. By him that thunders, thou has lusty arms; Hector would have them fall upon him thus. Cousin, all honour to thee!”
Ajax: “I thank thee, Hector. Thou art too gentle. I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence a great addition earned in thy death.”
Hector: “Ajax, farewell.”
Ajax: “I would desire my famous cousin to our Greek tents.”
Diomedes: “Tis Agamemnon’s wish; and great Achilles does long to see unarmed the valiant Hector.”
Hector: “I will go eat with thee, and see your knights.”
Ajax: “Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.”
Hector: “The worthiest of them tell me name by name; but for Achilles, my own searching eyes shall find him by his large and portly size.”
Agamemnon: “Worthy all arms! From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.”
Hector: “I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon.”
Agamemnon: (to Troilus) “My well-famed lord of Troy, no less to you.”
Menelaus: “Let me confirm my princely brother’s greeting.”
Hector: “Who must we answer?”
Aeneas: “The noble Menelaus.”
Hector: “O you, my lord? Mock not that I affect the untrained oath; your wife swears still by Venus’ glove. She’s well, but bade me not commend her to you.”
Menelaus: “Name her not now, sir; she’s a deadly theme.”
Hector: “O pardon; I offend.”
Nestor: “I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee often, labouring for destiny, make cruel way though ranks of Greek youth. That I have said to some of my standers-by ‘Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!’ And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath, when that a ring of Greeks have hemmed thee in, like an Olympian wrestling. This have I seen; but this thy countenance, still locked in steel, I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire, and once fought with him. He was a soldier good, but, by great Mars, never like thee. O, let an old man embrace thee; and worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.”
Aeneas: “Tis the old Nestor.”
Hector: “Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle, that has so long walked hand in hand with time. Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee.”
Nestor: “I would my arms could match thee in contention, as they contend with thee in courtesy.”
Hector: “I would they could.”
Nestor: “Ha! By this white beard, I’d fight with thee tomorrow. Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time.”
Ulysses: “Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue, my prophesy is but half his journey yet; for yonder walls, that front your town, must kiss their own feet.”
Hector: “I must not believe you. There they stand yet, and modestly I think the fall of every Trojan stone will cost a drop of Greek blood. The end crowns all; and that old common arbitrator, time, will one day end it.”
Ulysses: “So to him we leave it. Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome.”
Achilles: “Now, Hector, I have fed my eyes on thee; I have with exact view pursued thee, Hector, and quoted joint by joint.”
Hector: “Is this Achilles?”
Achilles: “I am Achilles.”
Hector: “Stand fair, I pray thee; let me look on thee.”
Achilles: “Behold thy fill.”
Hector: “O, like a book of sport thou will read me over; but there’s more in me than thou understands. Why does thou so oppress me with thine eyes?”
Achilles: “Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his body shall I destroy him? Whether there, or there, or there? Answer me, heavens.”
Hector: “It would discredit the blessed gods, proud man, to answer such a question. Henceforth, guard thee well; for I’ll not kill thee there, not there, not there; But, I’ll kill thee everywhere, yea, over and over. You wisest Greeks, pardon me this brag. His insolence draws folly from my lips.”
Ajax: “Do not chafe thee, cousin; and you, Achilles, let these threats alone. You may have every day enough of Hector, if you have stomach.”
Hector: “I pray you let us see you in the field.”
Achilles: “Does thou entreat me, Hector? Tomorrow do I meet thee, fell as death; tonight all friends.”
Agamemnon: “First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent; there in the full convive we; afterwards, as Hector’s leisure and your bounties shall concur together, severally entreat him. Beat loud the tambourines, let the trumpets blow, that this great soldier may his welcome know.”
Exit all but Troilus and Ulysses
Troilus: “My Lord Ulyssess, tell me, I beseech you, in what place of the field does Calchas keep?”
Ulysses: “At Menelaus’ tent, most princely Troilus. There Diomedes does feast with him tonight, who gives all gaze and bent of amorous view on the fair Cressida.”
Troilus: “Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much, after we part from Agamemnon’s tent, to bring me hither?”
Ulysses: “You shall command me, sir. As gentle, tell me of what honour was this Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there who wails her absence?”
Troilus: “She was beloved and she loved; she is and does.”
Summary and Analysis
Cressida arrives in the Greek camp and the principle Greek soldiers all line up for kisses. She seems quite comfortable and at ease with the Greeks, enjoying her flirtatious exchanges with them all. There appears to be little regard for her vows to Troilus. It is Ulysses who suggests she be kissed by all the soldiers and when he sees how much she embraces this he determines that she is sluttish and will not kiss her himself. He feels he has exposed her true nature. The scene then shifts to the much heralded contest between Ajax and Hector. Ajax is actually half Greek and half Trojan and Hector does not wish to fight his kin, so they embrace and Hector is invited to visit the various tents of the main Greek warriors, where he is much welcomed. Only Achilles is aggressive, claiming they will fight tomorrow and that he will then and there kill Hector. Hector looks forward to this confrontation and then they all go off to a feast together. Finally, Troilas asks Ulysses where Cressida’s father resides and following the feast Ulysses promises to take Troilus there so he can see Cressida. Ulysses asks Troilus if Cressida had a lover in Troy who ‘wails her absence’. Troilus assure him that ‘she was beloved and loved, and still is and does’. Ulysses may know better.
After Act IV it would seem that only Hector is the honourable warrior on the field. He shows himself as flexible when at first he insists that Helen be returned to the Greeks, as ‘she is not worth the cost of keeping’, but then changes his mind when he hears the opposite opinion expressed so well by Paris and Troilus. No one else ever demonstrates an ability to be so flexible. He enters the contest with Ajax agreeing to any terms and conditions Ajax would prefer. When they fight he stops it almost immediately, stating that he and Ajax are actually related and he prefers that they not harm one another. “Let me embrace thee, Ajax.” The various Greeks invite him to their tents and he is graceful and humble with them all. Only Achilles is quite rude with him and when Hector replies similarly he apologizes to the Greeks for his foolish insolence. In Act V we will see what becomes of this man of honour in this snakepit of treachery, jealousy and extreme egotistical pride.
Act V
Scene I
The Greek camp, before the tent of Achilles.
Enter Achilles and Patroclus
Patroclus: “Here comes Thersites.”
Enter Thersites
Achilles: “How now thou core of envy! Thou crusty batch of nature, what’s the news?”
Thersites: “Why, thou picture of what thou seamest, and idol of idiot worshippers, here’s a letter for thee.”
Achilles: “From whence, fragment?”
Thersites: “Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.”
Patroclus: “Who keeps the tent now?”
Thersites: “Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk; thou art said to be Achilles male harlot.”
Patroclus: “Male harlot, you rogue?”
Thersites: “Yes, his masculine whore.”
Patroclus: “Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what means thou to curse thus?”
Thersites: “Do I curse thee?”
Patroclus: “Why, no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.”
Thersites: “No! Why art thou, then, exasperate, thou idea immaterial silk, thou green flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a purse, thou?”
Patroclus: “Out, gall!”
Thersites: “Finch egg!”
Achilles: “My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite from my purpose in tomorrow’s battle. Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba, a token from her daughter, my fair love, both taxing me and gagging me to keep an oath that I have sworn. I will not break it. Fall Greeks. Go or stay. My major vow lies here, this I’ll obey.”
Exit Achilles and Patrolcus
Thersites: “With too much blood and too little brain these two may run mad; but, if with too much brain and too little blood they do, I’ll be a curer of madmen. Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, but he has not so much brain as ear-wax; he is both ass and ox.”
Enter Hector, Trolus, Ajax, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Menelaus and Diomenes.
Enter Achilles: “Welcome brave Hector; welcome princes all.”
Agamemnon: “So now, fair Prince of Troy, I bid good night. Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.”
Hector: “Thanks and good night to the Greek general.”
Menelaus: “Good night, my lord.”
Hector: “Good night sweet Lord Menelaus.”
Achilles: “Diomedes, keep Hector company an hour or two.”
Diomedes: “I cannot, lord; I have important business, the tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector.”
Ulysses: (aside to Troilus) “Follow his torch; he goes to Calchas’ tent.”
Exit Diomedes; Ulysses and Troilus follow.
Thersites: “That same Diomedes is a false hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will no more trust him than I will a serpent when he hisses. They say he uses the traitor Calchas’ tent. I’ll after him. Nothing but lechery! All incontnent harlots!”
Summary and Analysis
Thersites is at his acerbic best in this scene, as he pummels both Achilles and Patroclus with great insults. He also delivers a letter to Achilles from the Trojan woman he loves, insisting that he not fight Hector the next day. He will honour her demand. After the feast Hector and Greeks retire but Ulysses notices Diomedes slipping away to see Cressida and invites Troilus to follow him toward Calchas’ tent. Thersites has also noticed this and curses Diomedes as false and unjust. He too follows to observe the lechery. Troilus will not like what he is about to see.
Act V
Scene ii
The Greek camp, before Calchas’ tent
Enter Diomedes
Calchas: (from within his tent) “Who calls?”
Diomedes: “Diomedes. Where is your daughter?”
Calchas: (from within) “She comes to you.”
Enter Troilus and Ulysses at a distance, followed by Thersites
Enter Cressida
Troilus: “Cressida comes forth to him.”
Diomedes: “How now, my charge.”
Cressida: “Now, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you.”
Diomedes and Cressida whisper
Diomedes: “Will you remember?”
Cressida: “Remember, yes.”
Troilus: “What shall she remember?”
Cressida: “Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.”
Thersites: “Roguery!”
Cressida: “In faith, what would you have me do?”
Diomedes: “What did you swear you would bestow upon me?”
Cressida: “Prithee, do not hold me to my oath; bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.”
Troilus: “Hold, patience!”
Cressida: “Diomedes.”
Diomedes: “No, no, good night; I’ll be your fool no more.”
Troilus: “O plague and madness!”
Ulysses: “You are moved, prince; let us depart, I pray, lest your displeasure should enlarge itself to wrathful terms. This place is dangerous; the time right deadly; I beseech you, go!”
Troilus: “I prithee, stay. By hell and all its torments, I will not speak a word.”
Diomedes: “And so, good night.”
Cressida: “Nay, but you part in anger.”
Troilus: “By love, I will be patient.”
Cressida: “Why Greek, come hither, once again.”
Troilus: “She strokes his cheek.”
Ulysses: “Come, come.”
Troilus: “Nay, stay a little while.”
Diomedes: “But will you then?”
Cressida: “In faith, I will; never trust me else.”
Diomede: “Give me some token for the purity of it.”
Cressida: “Here, Diomedes, keep this sleeve.”
Troilus: “O beauty! Where is thy faith?”
Cressida: “Look upon that sleeve; Behold it well. He loved me.”
Diomedes: “Who was it? “
Cressida: “It is no matter. I will not meet with you tomorrow night. I prithee, Diomedes, visit me no more.”
Thersites: “Well said, whetstone.”
Diomedes: “Come, tell me whose it was.”
Cressida: “Twas one who loved me better than you will.”
“Diomedes: “Tomorrow I will wear it on my helm, and grieve his spirit who dares not challenge it.”
Cressida: “Well, well, tis done.”
Diomedes: “Why then, farewell; thou never shall mock Diomedes again.”
Cressida: “You shall not go.”
Diomedes: “I do not like this fooling. What, shall I come?”
Cressida: “Ay, come – O Jove – do come.”
Diomedes: “Farewell till then.”
Cressida: “Good night, I pray thee come.”
Exit Diomedes
Cressida “Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee; but with my heart the other heart does see. Ah, poor our sex! Tis fault in us I find, the error of our eye directs our mind. What error leads must err. O, then conclude, mind swayed by eyes are full of turpitude.”
Exit Cressida
Thesites: “A proof of strength she could not publish more, unless she said ‘my mind is now turned whore’.”
Ulysses: “All is done, my lord.”
Troilus: “It is.”
Ulysses: “Why stay we then?”
Troilus: “To make a record to my soul of every syllable that here was spoke. Was Cressida here? She was not, surely. I rather think this was not Cressida. This she? No; this is Diomedes’ Cressida. If beauty has a soul, this is not she. If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonious, if sanctimony be the god’s delight, if there be rule in unity itself, this was not she. O madness of discourse, where reason can revolt without perdition, and loss assume all reason without revolt; this is, and is not, Cressida. O instance! Cressida is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven. O instance! The bonds of heaven are slipped, dissolved and loosened. The fractions of her faith, the fragments, scraps, bits, and greasy relics of her over-eaten faith, are bound to Diomedes.”
Ulysses: “May worthy Troilus be half-attached with that which here his passion does express?”
Troilus: “Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well. Never did a young man fancy with so eternal and so fixed a soul. Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressida love, so much by weight hate I her Diomedes. That sleeve is mine that he’ll bear on his helm. My sword should bite it. O Cressida! O false Cressida! False, false false! Let all untruths stand by thy stained name, and they’ll seem glorious.”
Thersites: “Would I could meet that rogue Diomedes! I would croak like a raven. Patroclus will give me anything for the intelligence of this whore. Lechery, lechery! Still wars and lechery! Nothing else holds fashion. A burning devil take them.”
Summary and Analysis
Diomedes meets up with Cressida, as Troilus, joined by Ulysses, looks on. Thersites watches as well. Diomedes and Cressider flirt and whisper. She has apparently made an oath to be his lover and teases him back and forth about whether or not she will. When he tires of this game he threatens to depart and she tells him she will honour her oath and gives him the sleeve that Troilus gave her as a token of their love. They agree to meet that night to consummate their lust. Once Diomedes is gone Cressida, in an aside, bids Troilus farewell. Troilus hears and observes all of this and is heartbroken, still in love with Cressida. Even Thersites is unimpressed by the display: “lechery, lechery.” This love lost by Troilus is one of the tragic outcomes of Shakespeare’s play. A tragedy on the battlefield itself still awaits us.
Act V
Scene iii
Troy, before Priam’s palace
Enter Hector and Andromache, his wife.
Andromache: “Unarm, unarm, and do not fight today.”
Hector: “You train me to offend you. By the everlasting gods, I’ll go. No more, I say.”
Enter Cassandra, his sister
Cassandra: “Where is my brother Hector?”
Andromache: “Here, sister, armed, and bloody in intent. Consort with me in loud and dear petition, pursue we him on knees; for I have dreamt of bloody turbulence, and this whole night has nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.”
Cassandra: “O, tis true!”
Hector: “Be gone, I say.”
Cassandra: “It is the purpose that makes strong the vow; but vows to every purpose must not hold. Unarm, sweet Hector.”
Hector: “My honour keeps the weather of my fate. Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honour far more precious dear than life.”
Enter Troilus
Hector: “How now, young man; doff thy harness. I am today in the vein of chivalry. Unarm thee, go. I would not have you fight today.”
Troilus: “Who should withhold me? No fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars, not Priam and Hecuba on knees, nor you, my brother, should stop my way, but by my ruin.”
Re-enter Cassandra with Priam
Cassandra: “Lay hold upon him, Priam, and hold him fast.”
Priam: “Come, Hector, come, go back. Thy wife has dreamt; thy mother has had visions; Cassandra does foresee; and I myself am like a prophet suddenly enrapt to tell thee that the day is ominous. Therefore, come back.”
Hector: “Aeneas is in the field and I do stand engaged with many Greeks.”
Priam: “Ay, but thou shall not go.”
Hector: “I must not break my faith. You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir, let me not shame respect; but give me leave to take that course by your consent and voice which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.”
Cassandra: “O Priam, yield not to him!”
Andromache: “Do not, dear father.”
Cassandra: “O, farewell, dear Hector! Look how thou dies. Look how thy eye turns pale. Look how thy wounds do bleed at many vents. Hark how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out; how poor Andromache shrills; behold distraction, frenzy and amazement, like witless antics, one another meet, and all cry, ‘Hector! Hector’s dead! O Hector!'”
Troilus: “Away, away!”
Cassandra: “Farewell Hector! I take my leave. Thou does thyself and all our Troy deceive.”
Hector: “My liege, go in and cheer the town; we’ll forth and fight, do deeds worth praise and tell you them tonight.”
Priam: “Farewell. The gods with safety stand about thee.”
Exit Priam and Hector. Alarums
Troilus: “They are at it, hark! Proud Diomedes, believe, I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.”
Enter Pandarus
Pandarus: “Do you hear, my lord? Do you hear? Here’s a letter come from yonder poor girl.”
Troilus: “Let me read it.”
Pandarus: “What says she?”
Troilus: “Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart; the effect does operate another way.”
Troilus tears the letter
Troilus: “My love with words and errors she still feeds, but edifies another with her deeds.”
Pandarus: “Why but hear you?”
Troilus: “Hence broker-lackey. Ignominy and shame pursue thy life and live with thy name.”
Summary and Analysis
As Hector prepares for battle his wife, mother and sister plead with him not to fight on this day. They have had visions and dreams of his death, but he dismisses them. Priam, his father, also has a foreboding about Hector’s demise but Hector won’t be persuaded off the field. Troilus arrives prepared to fight, even after Hector prefers he not. Pandarus presents a letter for Troilus from Cressida, still professing her love. But having seen and heard all that he has, he tears the letter into pieces and curses Pandarus.
Act V
Scene iv
The plain between Troy and the Greek camp
Enter Thersites
Thersites: “Now they are clapper-clawing one another. I’ll go look on. That dissembling abominable harlot, Diomedes, has got that same scurvy doting foolish young knave’s sleeve of Troy there in his helm. I would fain see them meet, that that same young Trojan ass that loves the whore there might send that Greek whoremasterly villain with the sleeve back to the dissembling luxurious drab of a sleeve-less errand. At the other side, the policy of those crafty swearing rascals – that stale old muse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Ulysses – is not proved worth a blackberry. They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles; and now is their Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm today; whereupon the Greeks begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion. Soft, here comes sleeve and the other.”
Enter Diomedes with Troilus following
Troilus: “Fly not; for should thou take the River Styx I would swim after.”
Diomedes: “I do not fly, but have at thee.”
Thersites: “Hold thy whore, Greek; now for thy whore, Trojan – now the sleeve, now the sleeve!”
Exit Troilus and Diomedes fighting
Enter Hector
Hector: “What art thou, Greek? Are thou for Hector’s match? Are thou of blood and honour?”
Thersites: “No, no – I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave; a very filthy rogue.”
Hector: “I do believe thee. Live.”
Thersites: (aside) “God-a-mercy, but a plague break thy neck for frighting me! What’s become of the wenching rogues? I think they have swallowed one another. I would laugh at that miracle. Yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself. I’ll seek them.”
Summary and Analysis
Thersites begins and ends this scene cursing Troilus and Diomedes, who are fighting each other because of Cressida. So very much foolishness on a battlefield for Thersites to rail upon!
Act V
Scene v
Another part of the plain.
Enter Diomedes and a servant.
Diomedes: “Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus’ horse; present the fair steed to my lady Cressida. Commend my service to her beauty; tell her I have chastised the amorous Trojan, and am her knight by proof.”
Servant: “I go, my lord.”
Enter Agamemnon
Agamemnon: “Renew, renew! Polixenes is slain; Amphimacus and Thoras deadly hurt; Patroclus is slain; and Palamedes hurt and bruised. Haste we, Diomedes, to reinforcements, or we perish all.”
Enter Nestor
Nestor: “Go, bear Patroclus’ body to Achilles. There are a thousand Hector’s in the field; now here he fights on his horse; anon he’s there afoot; then he is yonder, and there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge, fall down before him like the mower’s swath. Here, there and everywhere, he leaves and takes; dexterity so obeying appetite that what he will he does, and does so much that proof is called impossibility.”
Enter Ulysses
Ulysses: “O, courage, courage, princes! Great Achilles is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance. Patroclus’ wounds have roused his drowsy blood, together with his mangled Myrmidons, those noseless, handless, hacked and chipped, who come to him, crying for Hector. Ajax has lost a friend and foams at the mouth, roaring for Troilus, who has done today mad and fantastic execution. Engaging and redeeming of himself with such a careless force and foreclose care as if that luck, in very spite of cunning, bade him win all.”
Enter Ajax
Ajax: “Troilus! Thou coward Troilus!”
Achilles: “Where is Hector? Come, thy boy-queller, show thy face; know what it is to meet Achilles’ anger. Hector! Where’s Hector? I will none but Hector.”
Summary and Analysis
You can feel the battle building and yet there are no climactic moments, as Ajax seeks Troilas, and Achilles hunts Hector. The rage is ascending and most of the principals are in evidence. The end is clearly near. All the remaining short scenes are played out on the fields of battle.
Act V
Scxene vi
Another part of the plain
Enter Ajax
Ajax: “Troilus, thou coward Troilus, show thy head.”
Enter Diomedes
Diomedes: “Troilus, I say! Where’s Troilus?”
Ajax: “What wouldst thou?”
Diomedes: “I would correct him.”
Enter Troilus
Troilus: “O traitor Diomedes! Turn thy false face, thou traitor, and pay thy life thou owes me for my horse.”
Ajax: “I’ll fight with him alone. Stand, Diomedes.”
Diomedes: “He is my prize.”
Troilus: “Come, both, you cogging Greeks; I’ll have at you both.”
Exit the three of them, fighting
Enter Hector
Hector: “Troilus? O, well fought, my youngest brother!”
Enter Achilles
Achilles: “Now I do see thee, ha! Have at thee, Hector!”
Hector: “Pause if thou will.”
Achilles: “I do disdain thy courtesy, proud Trojan. Be happy that my arms are out of use; my rest and negligence befriends thee now, but thou anon shall hear of me again: till then, go seek thy fortune.”
Hector: “Fare thee well. I would have been much more of a fresher man, had I expected thee.”
Re-enter Troilus
Hector: “How now, my brother!”
Troilus: “Ajax has taken Aeneas. Shall it be? He shall not carry him. I’ll be taken too, or bring him back.”
Summary and Analysis
Both Ajax and Diomedes search for Troilus, who arrives determined to take on both of them. Hector and Achilles are too tired to fight each other. There is news that Ajax has taken Aeneas. Hardly the stuff of military legend. Shakespeare is deliberately dispelling Homer’s original intention in order to depict these famous fighters as anything but heroic.
Act V
Scene vii
Another part of the plain.
Enter Achilles
Achilles: “Come about me, you my Myrmidons; mark what I say. Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath; and when I have the bloody Hector found, empale him with your weapons round about; in fellest manner execute your arms. It is decreed Hector the Great must die.”
Enter Menelaus and Paris, fighting, watched by Thersites
Thersites: “The cuckhold and the cuckhold-maker are at it.”
Exit Paris and Menelaus
Enter Margarelon
Margarelon: “Turn slave and fight.”
Thersites: “What art thou?”
Margalelon: “A bastard son of Priam’s.”
Thesites: “I am a bastard too; I love bastards. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard. Farewell bastard.”
Margarelon: “The devil take thee, coward.”
Summary and Analysis
Yet another pathetic little scene of cowards where we might expect a great heroic end of the play. Don’t hold your breath.
Act V
Scene viii
Another part of the plain
Enter Hector
Hector: “Now is my day’s work done; I’ll take good breath: rest, sword; thou has thy fill of blood and death!”
Enter Achilles and his Myrmidons
Achilles: “Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set. To close the day up, Hector’s life is done.”
Hector: “I am unarmed; forego this vantage, Greek.”
Achilles: “Srike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek.”
Hector is slain
Achilles: “Come, Troy, sink down; here lies thy heart, thy sinews and thy bones. On, Myrmidons, Achilles has the mighty Hector slain. Come, tie his body to my horse’s tail; along the field I will the Trojan trail.”
Summary and Analysis
In Homers’ Illiad, Hector is slain fair and square, in honest battle. Here, Shakespeare has him underhandedly murdered by shameless Achilles. The one man of honour in the entire play is slain while unarmed by a pack of thugs. Two Trojans, Troilus and Hector, are the tragic figures in this rendering. The war will last another three years, when the Greeks will use trickery once again, with the apparent gift of a Trojan horse. No wonder the Gods sympathetic to the Trojans will plague Ulysses all the way home for ten years in the sequel.
Act V
Scene ix
Another part of the plain.
Enter Agamemnon, Ajax, Menelaus, Nestor and Diomedes and others
Agamemnon: “Hark! Hark! What shout is this?”
Soldiers: ” Achilles! Achilles! Hector is slain. Achilles!”
Diomedes: “Hector is slain by Achilles.”
Ajax: “Great Hector was as good a man as he.”
Agamemnon: “Great Troy is ours and our sharp wars are ended.”
Summary and Analysis
The news spreads and the Greeks celebrate Achilles having slain Hector. There is no mention of how it was done. Ajax, ever jealous of Achilles, claims that Hector was as good a man as Achilles, and Agamemnon believes that the end of Hector means the end of the war, which is simply not so. It will continue for three more years.
Act V
Scene x
Another part of the plain
Enter Aeneas, Paris and Antenor
Aeneas: “Stand ho! Yet are we masters of the field. Never go home.”
Enter Troilus
Troilus: “Hector is slain.”
All: “Hector! The gods forbid!”
Troilus: “He’s dead and at the murderer’s horse’s tail, in beastly sort, dragged through the shameful field. Who shall tell Priam or Hecuba? Go in to Troy and say there that Hector is dead. Hector is dead. There is no more to say.”
Enter Pandarus
Pandarus: “Hear you! Hear you!”
Troilus: “Hence broker-lackey. Ignominy and shame pursue thy life.”
Exit all but Pandarus
Pandarus: “A goodly medicine for my aching bones! O world! World! Thus is the poor agent despised! O traitors and bawds, how ill you are requited! Why should our endeavour be so loved, and the performance so loathed?”
Pandarus: (epilogue) “Good traders in the flesh, as many as be here in Pander’s hall, your eyes weep out at Pander’s fall. Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans, though not for me, yet for your aching bones. Till then I’ll sweat and seek about for eases, and at that time bequeath you my diseases.”
Summary and Analysis
Cressida’s infidelity and Achille’s treachery are the twin anti-climaxes of the play. All’s fair in love and war, indeed. In this final scene Aeneas insists that the Trojans remain masters of the field despite the loss of Hector. The news of Hector is devastating to the Trojans. Pandarus shows up at the absolute worst time and greets Troilus, who once again curses him. Then Pandarus concludes this bitter play with the bitterest of endings, referring to himself as the poor agent despised and wondering why his endeavour was so loved but his performances so loathed. Finally, Pandarus turns to the audience and concludes the play as though he were Thersites, crassly bequeathing his diseases upon them (us). A perfectly grotesque ending for a tragically grotesque play of great genius and intelligence.
Final thoughts
This is not an easy play to either read or witness. So many unlikable characters in a tragic tale of deception and corruption, its merit lies in some of Shakespeare’s finest language and speeches and several memorable reflections expressed by certain individuals, such as Thersites, Hector and Ulysses. The love story begins with great promise as does our expectation of these warriors we know from Homer’s rendering. But both lovers and warriors alike faulter and fumble aplenty, providing ample ammunition for the disapproving critic, Thersites. Troilus and Cressida are doomed from the start, with Pandarus light heartedly pulling the strings to bring them together in lust. The war itself becomes something of a comedy of errors, as most of the best fighters on both sides are profoundly distracted by their own personal affairs and inflated egos. Menelaus wants his Helen back, who Paris enjoys immensely. Achilles is far too interested in his young boy lover than in coming out of his tent to fight. Ajax is depicted as a mindless dolt. Enough of the Greeks are convinced that getting Helen back is worth the cost they pay in blood and enough Trojans feel it is all worth keeping her. And so it goes on and on. The futility of war has seldom been so convincingly presented. When they are not fighting each other they routinely cross the lines and mingle with their enemies in friendship and comradery. Hector is the most honourable of the warriors and suffers the most dishonourable death, treacherously murdered by a band of Achilles’ thugs. Ulysses tries to use his wisdom to end the war but nothing works out as planned. He will eventually concoct the Trojan Horse trickery to finally win the war for the Greeks.
Shakespeare’s source, other than Homer himself, is Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, a well known story in Shakespeare’s day. After Shakespeare’s death the next staging we are aware of is in 1907. The Royal Shakespeare Company resurrects Troilus and Cressida on a very regular basis. There has also been a well regarded version set in the U.S. Civil War. Youtube, as usual, has several full stage productions and a significant amount of clips and analysis. If you type into Youtube ‘Marjorie Garber Shakespeare lectures’ you will unearth a treasure of Harvard lectures by professor Garber entitled ‘Shakespeare After All: the Later Plays’, wherein 12 of his later works are examined in just under two hours each. Troilus and Credit is one of them. Ms. Graber is incredibly insightful and has written a highly recommended book, also entitled ‘Shakespeare After All’, in which she analyzes all 38 plays. It is available on Amazon. Excellent stuff!
William Shakespeare: Journey Through Genius 