Troilus and Cressida
Troilus
and Cressida (/ˈtrɔɪləs ... ˈkrɛsɪdə/) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare,
believed to have been written in 1602. It was described by Frederick
S. Boas as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The play ends on a very bleak note with the death of the
noble Trojan Hector
and destruction of the love between Troilus and Cressida. The work has in
recent years "stimulated exceptionally lively critical debate"
Throughout
the play, the tone lurches wildly between bawdy comedy and tragic gloom, and
readers and theatre-goers have frequently found it difficult to understand how
one is meant to respond to the characters. Several characteristic elements of
the play (the most notable being its constant questioning of intrinsic values such as hierarchy, honour,
and love) have often been viewed as distinctly "modern",
as in the following remarks on the play by author and literary scholar Joyce
Carol Oates:
Troilus
and Cressida, that most vexing and ambiguous of
Shakespeare's plays, strikes the modern reader as a contemporary document – its
investigation of numerous infidelities, its criticism of tragic pretensions,
above all, its implicit debate between what is essential in human life and what
is only existential are themes of the twentieth century. ... This is tragedy of
a special sort – the "tragedy" the basis of which is the
impossibility of conventional tragedy.
Characters
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The Trojans
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Plot
Synopsis
Troilus
and Cressida is set during the later years of
the Trojan
War, faithfully following the plotline
of the Iliad from Achilles'
refusal to participate in battle, to Hector's death. Essentially, two plots are followed in the play.
In one, Troilus, a Trojan
prince (son of Priam),
woos Cressida, another Trojan. They profess their undying love, before
Cressida is exchanged for a Trojan prisoner of war. As he attempts to visit her
in the Greek camp, Troilus glimpses Diomedes flirting with his beloved Cressida, and decides to avenge
her perfidy.
While
this plot gives the play its name, it accounts for only a small part of the
play's run time. The majority of the play revolves around the leaders of the
Greek and Trojan forces, Agamemnon and Priam,
respectively. Agamemnon and his cohorts attempt to get the proud Achilles to
return to battle and face Hector, who sends the Greeks a letter telling them of
his willingness to engage in one-on-one combat with a Greek soldier. Ajax is originally chosen as this combatant, but makes peace
with Hector before they are able to fight. Achilles is prompted to return to
battle only after his protege Patroclus is killed by Hector before the Trojan walls. A series of
skirmishes conclude the play, during which Achilles catches Hector and has the Myrmidons kill him. The conquest of Troy is left unfinished, as the
Trojans learn of the death of their hero.
Act 1
Scene 1
The
play opens with a Prologue, an actor dressed as a soldier, who gives us the
background to the plot, which takes place during the Trojan
War. Immortalized in Greek
mythology and Homer's Iliad, the war occurs because a Trojan prince, Paris, has stolen
the beautiful Helen
from her husband, King Menelaus
of Sparta, and carries her home to Troy with him. In response,
Menelaus gathers his fellow Greek kings, and they sail to Troy hoping to
capture the city and reclaim Helen.
Within
the walls of Troy, Prince Troilus complains to Pandarus that he is unable to fight because of heartache; he is
desperately in love with Pandarus's niece, Cressida. Pandarus complains that he
has been doing his best to further Troilus's pursuit of his niece, and that he
has received small thanks for his labors. After he departs, Troilus remarks that Pandarus has been growing irritable lately. As
he ponders, the Trojan commander Aeneas comes in, bringing news about that Paris has been wounded
in combat with Menelaus. As the noise of battle comes in offstage, Troilus
agrees to join his Trojan comrades on the field.
Scene 2
In
another part of the city, Cressida converses with her servant, who recounts how a Greek
warrior named Ajax,
a valiant but stupid man, managed to overcome the great Trojan prince Hector the previous day, and that Hector is fighting furiously
because of this defeat. Cressida is joined by Pandarus, and they discuss the
Trojan princes, with Pandarus taking the unlikely position that Troilus is a
greater man than Hector. As they converse, several Trojan lords pass by them
returning from battle, including Antenor, Aeneas, Hector, and Paris; Pandarus
praises each one, but tells his niece that none of them can match Troilus. He
then leaves Cressida, promising to bring a token from Troilus. Alone, Cressida
says that while she returns Troilus's feelings, she is holding him off; she is
enjoying his pursuit of her.
Scene 3
In
the Greek camp, the great general and king Agamemnon is conversing with his lieutenants and fellow kings. He
asks why they seem so glum and downcast for although their seven-year siege of
Troy has met little success so far, they should welcome the adversity that the
long war represents, since only in difficult times can greatness emerge.
Nestor, the oldest of the Greek commanders, cites examples of how heroism
emerges from hardship. In response, Ulysses expresses his deep respect for what
they have said, but points out that the Greek army is facing a crisis not
because of the duration of the war, but because of a breakdown in authority
within the Greek camp. Instead of being united, they are divided into factions:
Achilles refuses to fight, and instead sits in his tent while his protege
Patroclus makes fun of the Greek commanders; others, like Ajax and his
foul-mouthed slave Thersites, follow this example, and so the entire army is
corrupted. The others agree that this is a great problem, and as they discuss
what is to be done, Aeneas appears under a flag of truce, bringing a challenge
from Hector. The Trojan prince offers to fight any Greek lord in single combat,
with the honor of their respective wives as the issue. The Greeks agree to find
a champion and offer Aeneas hospitality. As Aeneas is led away, Ulysses tells
Nestor that this challenge is truly directed at Achilles, since only Achilles
could match the great Hector in battle. But to have Achilles fight Hector would
be dangerous, because if Achilles lost, it would dishearten the entire army.
Therefore, Ulysses suggests, they should have Ajax fight Hector instead; even
if Ajax loses, they can still claim that Achilles would have won in his place.
At the same time, by choosing Ajax as their champion, they will infuriate
Achilles and perhaps goad him into rejoining the war, bringing with him all his
soldiers. Nestor, impressed with Ulysses's intelligence, agrees to the plan.
Act 2
Scene 1
In
the Greek camp, Ajax summons his slave, Thersites, and orders him to find out
the nature of the proclamation that has just been posted. Thersites, a
foul-mouthed ruffian, refuses to obey and instead curses his master and the
Greeks with equal vigor, provoking Ajax to beat him. Achilles and Patroclus
come upon them and he includes them in his curses. Offended at Patroclus'
request he stop, he replies "I will hold my peace when Achilles' brooch
bids me, shall I?", the term "in the 16th century meant, among other
things, a 'pointed rod, spit or pricker,'" implying that Achilles and
Patroclus were lovers and further demeaning Achilles' masculinity. They send
him away, and Achilles tells Ajax the news of Hector's challenge to any brave
Greek warrior. The selection of the warrior has been put to a lottery
otherwise, Achilles says as he leaves, he would have been the only possible
choice, a remark that produces a sneer from Ajax.
Scene 2
In
Troy, King Priam and his sons debate the wisdom of continuing the war, when
they can end it by returning Helen to the Greeks. Hector, supported by his
brother Helenus, argues eloquently that while the theft of Helen may have been
a brave act, she cannot be worth the great and bloody price they are paying to
keep her. When he is done speaking, his sister Cassandra, a prophetess who is
considered mad, dashes in and cries that if they do not let Helen go, Troy will
burn. When she is gone, Troilus dismisses her warning as ravings, and argues
that they must keep Helen for the sake of their honor and Paris supports him.
Hector retorts that this is why young men cannot be trusted to make moral
decisions. since passion overwhelms their reason, but Troilus says that Helen
is more than a woman, she is a theme of honor and renown, Hector yields and
agrees to continue the war. He goes on to report the challenge that has been
sent out to the Greeks, and how he hopes it will bring Achilles to the field.
Scene 3
Alone,
Thersites sneers at the pretensions of both Ajax and Achilles. When Patroclus
and Achilles appear, he calls them fools; Patroclus moves to strike him, but
Achilles holds him off. They see the Greek commanders Agamemnon, Ulysses,
Nestor, and Diomedes approaching, accompanied by Ajax, and Achilles quickly
retires to his tent. When Agamemnon asks to see him, Patroclus tells the
general that Achilles is ill. Agamemnon grows angry, but Achilles refuses to
emerge, and tells Ulysses, who goes in to see him, that he still refuses to
fight the Trojans. Agamemnon suggests that Ajax go in and plead with Achilles,
but Ulysses declares that doing so would be insulting to Ajax, and then he,
with the other Greek commanders, praises Ajax profusely, saying that he is the
best of their warriors. They agree to leave Achilles in his tent, and decide
that Ajax will be their champion against Hector the next day.
Act 3
Scene 1
In
Troy, Pandarus converses with a servant while he waits to speak with Paris and
Helen. When they come in, he compliments Helen profusely, and asks her to
excuse Troilus if Priam asks about him at dinner that night. Paris and Helen
ask where Troilus will be dining, and Pandarus refuses to tell him but they
both guess that he will be in pursuit of Cressida, and they make bawdy jokes
about it as they depart to greet the returning warriors.
Scene 2
Pandarus
finds Troilus pacing about impatiently in an orchard, and assures him that his
desire for Cressida will soon be satisfied. He goes out, leaving Troilus giddy
with expectation, and brings in Cressida; after urging them to embrace,
Pandarus departs. Left alone, they profess their love for one another, and each
pledges to be faithful to the other. He reassures her and again pledges to be
faithful, declaring that thereafter history will say of all lovers that they
were as true as Troilus. Cressida declares that if she ever strays from him,
she hopes that people will say of false lovers that they were as false as
Cressida. Pandarus declares that if ever the pair prove false, may 'all pitiful
goers-between' be called after his name.
Scene 3
Meanwhile,
in the Greek encampment, Cressida's father, Calchas, who has betrayed Troy in
order to join the Greeks, asks the Greek general to grant him a favor. He asks
that they exchange the Trojan commander Antenor, for his daughter, so that he
might be reunited with her. Agamemnon agrees, and orders Diomedes to supervise
the exchange. On Ulysses's advice, the Greek commanders then file past
Achilles's tent, and scorn the proud warrior, ignoring his greetings and making
him uneasy. He goes to Ulysses and asks him why he is being scorned, and
Ulysses tells him that he is no longer a hero and he will be forgotten quickly.
He tells, and suggests that Achilles could restore his fame and honor if he
stopped dallying with enemy women and took the field. When Ulysses is gone,
Patroclus tells Achilles to follow Ulysses's advice; seeing that his reputation
is at stake, and Achilles agrees. Thersites comes in and reports that Ajax is
now striding about the camp, completely puffed up with his own importance.
Patroclus persuades the foul-tongued slave to talk Ajax into bringing Hector,
safely conducted by Agamemnon, to Achilles' tent after their fight the next
day, so that Achilles may speak with Hector.
Act 4
Scene 1
Diomedes
comes to Troy to make the exchange of Antenor for Cressida, and he is greeted
heartily by Aeneas and Paris. Aeneas goes to fetch Cressida, remarking that
this exchange will deal a heavy blow to Troilus; Paris concurs, but says
regretfully that they have no choice: "the bitter disposition of the time
will have it so. After Aeneas is gone, Diomedes is asked who he thinks deserves
Helen more Paris or Menelaus? With great bitterness, the Greek replies that
both deserve her, since both are fools, willing to pay a great price in blood
for a whore.
Scenes 2–3
Meanwhile,
as morning breaks, Troilus takes a regretful leave of Cressida while she pleads
with him to stay a little longer. Pandarus comes in and makes several bawdy
jokes about their recent lovemaking; suddenly, there is a knock at the door,
and Cressida hides Troilus in her bedroom. Aeneas enters, and demands that
Pandarus fetch Troilus. When the young prince emerges, Aeneas tells him the sad
news that Cressida must be sent to her father in the Greek camp. Troilus is
distraught, and goes with Aeneas to see his father, Priam, while Pandarus
breaks the news to Cressida, who begins to weep.
Scene 4
Troilus
brings Diomedes, together with the great lords of Troy, to Cressida's house,
and begs leave to say goodbye to his lady. When they are alone, he pledges to
be faithful, and Cressida promises that even in the Greek camp, she will remain
true to him. Then Diomedes is brought in, and Troilus demands that he "use
her well...for, by the dreadful Pluto, if thou dost not, Though the great bulk
Achilles be thy guard, I'll cut thy throat (1.4.124–129). Diomedes retorts that
he will make no promises he will treat Cressida as she deserves, but not
because any Trojan prince orders him to. At that moment, a trumpet sounds,
calling them all to the Greek camp for the duel between Hector and Ajax.
Scene 5
In
the Greek camp, the newly arrived Cressida is greeted by all the Greek
commanders. Ulysses insists that she be kissed by everyone, only then refusing
to kiss her himself and when she is gone, he declares that she is a loose,
unvirtuous woman. Then the Trojan lords arrive, and the conditions of the duel
are set by Aeneas, who remarks that since Ajax and Hector are related, Hector's
whole heart will not be in this fight. As the two combatants prepare, Agamemnon
asks Ulysses “what Trojan is that same that looks so heavy“ (4.5.113.1).
Ulysses tells his general that the downcast Trojan is Troilus, and then goes on to praise him profusely, saying that
Troilus may even be a greater man than Hector.
Act 5
Scene 1
Achilles
boasts to Patroclus how he will kill Hector. The two encounter Thersites, who
delivers a letter to Achilles, and then unloads his usual torrent of abuse on
them, calling Patroclus Achilles' male varlot, his 'masculine whore', and on
the entire campaign. The letter is from the Trojan princess, Polyxena, whom
Achilles loves, and it begs him not to fight the next day; he tells Patroclus
sadly that he must obey her wishes. They go out, and Thersites remains; he
watches from the shadows as the feast breaks up. Most of the lords go to bed,
but Diomedes slips off to see Cressida, and Ulysses and Troilus follow him.
Noting that Diomedes is an untrustworthy, lustful rogue, Thersites follows him
as well.
Scene 2
At
Calchas's tent, Diomedes calls to Cressida. Her father fetches her, while
Troilus and Ulysses watch from one hiding place and Thersites from another.
With Thersites's profanity and Troilus's shock providing a counterpoint,
Diomedes woos Cressida, who behaves reluctantly but coyly toward his advances,
fending him off for a time but never allowing him to leave. Eventually, she
gives him a sleeve that Troilus presented to her as a love-token then she takes
it back, and says that she never wants to see Diomedes again then she softens,
gives it to him once more, and promises to wait for him later, when he will
come to sleep with her. When she is gone, and Diomedes too, Troilus is in
agony, first denying the evidence seen with his own eyes, and then pledging to
find Diomedes on the field of battle and kill him. Finally, as morning nears,
Aeneas arrives to lead him back to Troy.
Scene 3
Hector
girds for battle, while the women, i.e. his wife, Andromache and his sister,
Cassandra plead with him not to go. Both have had dreams that prophesize his
death, but he dismisses their warnings. Troilus comes in and says that he will
be fighting too; indeed, he chides Hector for having been too merciful to his
enemies in the past, saying that today Troilus plans to slay as many men as he
can. Cassandra leads Priam in, and the old king pleads with his son not to
fight, saying that he too feels foreboding about this day, but Hector refuses
to listen and goes out to the battlefield. Pandarus brings Troilus a letter
from Cressida; Troilus tears it up and follows Hector out to the field.
Scene 4
As
the battle rages, Thersites wanders the field, escaping death by brazen
cowardice.
Scene 5
Another
part of the plains, Agamemnon summarises the ways the Greeks are doing badly in
the battle, including that Doreus is taken prisoner and Patroclus probably
slain. Then Nestor enters and says that “There is a thousand Hectors in the
field” (5.4.3.) The scene ends with Achilles asking where Hector is.
Scene 6
Troilus
calls Diomed a traitor for capturing his horse. Diomed, Ajax and Troilus exit,
fighting.
Hector
spares the unprepared Achilles, who boasts that Hector was simply fortunate to
find him unarmed. Hector sees a Greek in ornate armour and pursues him.
Scene 7
In
another part of the plains. Menelaus and Paris enter the scene fighting.
Thersites is confronted by a bastard son of Priam, but declares that as he is
himself a bastard they have no business fighting each other.
Scene 8
Achilles
and his men find Hector, who has finished fighting and taken off his armour in
order to try on the golden armour of the warrior he has conquered. Surrounding
the unarmed Trojan, they stab him to death.
Scene 9
Agamenon,
Ajax, Menelaus, Nestor, Diomedes and others enter marching. Word arrives of the
death of Hector.
Scene 10
Left
alone on the stage, the unhappy Pandarus wonders why he should be so abused,
when his services were so eagerly desired only a little while before.
Genre identification problems
The
difficulties about the date of the play are insignificant compared with the
difficulties of its genre identification.
A
famous 19th century literary critic named Frederick S. Boas argued that Troilus
and Cressida (along with Measure for Measure and All's Well That
Ends Well), deserves its own special category: "Problem Play."
The term problem play was drawn from the socially conscious drama of
playwrights contemporaneous with Boas, like Ibsen and Shaw, and describes a
play centred on a social or political problem in such a way as to promote
debate but not easy resolution.
The
confusing nature of Troilus and Cressida made it hard for readers to
understand the play. The category of genre is one easy way in which to make
sense of a play, but then naturally arises the question ”To which genre does
Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida belong?” It has been called a
tragedy, ”a comedy of disillusion,” . . .a wry-mouthed comedy”,” . . . a satire
. . . a piece of propaganda . . . a morality . . . and (of course) a Problem
Play”. Unfortunately, neither critics nor dramatists have been successful in
its categorization.
Yet
the deep sense of Troilus and Cressida, according to Anthony B. Dawson,
lies exactly in its perplexity: ”It is still full of puzzles, but that fact has
been recognized as a virtue rather than a defect – its difficulties are
generative, its obstacles fruitful”.
Positioned
between the Histories and the Tragedies in the First Folio, it resembles
tragedy despite the lack of typical tragic plot structure. Nowadays Troilus
and Cressida is often grouped with the so-called "problem
comedies" with Measure for Measure and All's Well That Ends Well.
Throughout this work we can observe Shakespeare's tone changing from light
comic to intensely tragic.
Literary
critic and scholar Joyce Carol Oates wrote that in reality these shifts
complimented the values Shakespeare questioned in the play: love, honour, and
hierarchy. To Oates Troilus and Cressida is one of the most intriguing
plays ever written, and in her opinion appears remarkably 'modern'. Oates
considered the play a new kind of contemporary tragedy - a grand existential
statement.
Sources
The
story of Troilus and Cressida is a medieval tale that is not part of Greek
mythology; Shakespeare drew on a number of
sources for this plotline, in particular Chaucer's version of the tale, Troilus and Criseyde, but also John
Lydgate's Troy
Book and Caxton's translation of the Recuyell of the
Historyes of Troye.
Chaucer's
source was Il Filostrato
by Boccaccio, which in turn derives from a 12th-century French text, Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman
de Troie.
The
story of the persuasion of Achilles into battle is drawn from Homer's Iliad (perhaps in the translation by George
Chapman), and from various medieval and
Renaissance retellings.
The
story was a popular one for dramatists in the early 17th century and
Shakespeare may have been inspired by contemporary plays. Thomas
Heywood's two-part play The Iron Age
also depicts the Trojan War
and the story of Troilus and Cressida, but it is not certain whether his or
Shakespeare's play was written first. In addition, Thomas Dekker
and Henry Chettle
wrote a play called Troilus and Cressida at around the same time as
Shakespeare, but this play survives only as a fragmentary plot outline.
Date and text
The
play is believed to have been written around 1602, shortly after the completion
of Hamlet. It was published in quarto in two separate editions, both in 1609. It is not known
whether the play was ever performed in its own time, because the two editions
contradict each other: One announces on the title page that the play had been
recently performed on stage; the other claims in a preface that it is a new
play that has never been staged.
The
play was entered into the Register of the Stationers
Company on 7 February 1603, by the
bookseller and printer James Roberts, with a mention that the play was acted by
the Lord Chamberlain's Men, Shakespeare's company. Publication followed in 1609; the
stationers Richard Bonian and Henry Walley re-registered the play on
28 January 1609, and later that year issued the first quarto, but in two "states". The first says the play was
"acted by the King's Majesty's servants at the Globe"; the second
version omits the mention of the Globe
Theatre, and prefaces the play with a long
epistle that claims that Troilus and Cressida is "a new play, never
staled with the stage, never clapper-clawed with the palms of the vulgar".
Some
commentators (like Georg Brandes,
the Danish Shakespeare scholar of the late 19th century) have attempted to
reconcile these contradictory claims by arguing that the play was composed
originally around 1600–1602, but heavily revised shortly before its 1609
printing. The play is noteworthy for its bitter and caustic nature, similar to
the works that Shakespeare was writing in the 1605–1608 period, King
Lear, Coriolanus,
and Timon of Athens.
In this view, the original version of the play was a more positive romantic
comedy of the type Shakespeare wrote ca. 1600, like As
You Like It and Twelfth
Night, while the later revision injected
the darker material – leaving the result a hybrid jumble of tones and intents.
The
Quarto edition labels it a history
play with the title The Famous
Historie of Troylus and Cresseid, but the First
Folio classed it with the tragedies, under the title The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida.
The confusion is compounded by the fact that in the original pressing of the
First Folio, the play's pages are unnumbered, the title is not included in the
Table of Contents, and it appears to have been squeezed between the histories
and the tragedies. Based on this evidence, scholars believe it was a very late
addition to the Folio, and therefore may have been added wherever there was
room.
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