Introduction
Troilus is a puzzling, challenging play, which repays study. It has been infrequently performed, until recent years.
Troilus is hard to classify in terms of genre. It is sui generis. It can be termed a “problem play”. It has elements of harsh comedy but also tragedy: in terms of the Trojan cause, the death of Hector is tragic. There are internal moral and political debates, and exchanges of insults. The war itself is a stop-start affair, interrupted by truces; the real fighting comes at the end.
It is a very long play, as it has well over 3,000 lines. There are two plots: a war one (over 2,000 lines) and a love one (over 1,000 lines).
The characters
There are several famous male characters, on both the Greek and Trojan sides. They are “heroes” that come down from Ancient Greek mythology. But it is striking that their status is diminished in Shakespeare’s version. Agamemnon, Ajax, Nestor and Achilles come across as selfish, pompous, arrogant and lacking in insight – unheroic, indeed.
Achilles is playful, early in the play, and cruel, later. He withdraws from the fighting, not because of a quarrel with Agamemnon (as in the Iliad) but because of his love for the Trojan princess Polyxena (as in the medieval sources). He takes advantage of Hector’s temporary vulnerability to kill him.
Ulysses is clever and crafty, and he has a command of rhetoric as a tool to persuade his hearers: see his speeches on Degree [I.3] and Time [III.3]. He is kind to Troilus but harsh in his judgement of Cressida (see below).
Hector is inclined to mercy, but he can be stubborn, and he occasionally shows flawed judgement. He rejects the demands of his wife Andromache, his sister Cassandra and his father Priam not to fight [V.3]. He prioritises his “honour”. (Cf Iliad VI.) Earlier, he places the “honour” associated with keeping Helen in Troy above the morality and practicality of returning her to her husband Menelaus (and ending the war) [II.2].
Troilus is young and immature, but brave in battle. Ulysses calls him “Manly as Hector, but more dangerous” [IV.5, 104] (more dangerous because less inclined to mercy). In love with Cressida (or infatuated with her), Troilus is bashful and hesitant. His language is vague, flowery and dreamy. He calls Cressida (like he does Helen) a “pearl” [I.102]. He seems unrealistic in his expectations of a love affair. (His rival Diomedes, by contrast, is confident, blunt and explicit.)
Thersites is derogatory about everybody; and he reduces the “argument” of the war to “a whore and a cuckold” (referring to Helen and Menelaus” [II.2.71f].
Pandarus is a broker who appears to derive vicarious pleasure from the Troilus-Cressida relationship. (Cressida actually calls him a “bawd” [I.2.281]). Despite the services he has rendered, he is later dismissed by Troilus as a “broker-lackey”, deserving of “ignomy [ignominy] and shame” [V.10]. And in his own soliloquy (which ends the play), he not only complains of his own “diseases” but offers to “bequeath” them to the audience” [line 57].
Cressida is susceptible to overtures from strong young men. She can be persuaded into one relationship, then out of that one into a new one. At the same time, she appears more realistic about the potential durability of a relationship than the idealistic Troilus.
The other female characters are: Cassandra, Andromache and Helen. The first two are caring, insightful people, but they lack power. Cassandra, in accordance with tradition, is never believed. Helen is called by Troilus “a pearl” of great price [II.2, 82]. But, in the only scene in which she appears [Act III, Scene 1], she comes across as playful and unserious – and, indeed, overvalued.
The war plot
As in the Iliad, the war plot climaxes in the killing of Patroclus by Hector and the revenge killing of Hector by Achilles. Troilus is left to try to take on Hector’s mantle. By the end of the play, Helen is still with Paris. The war appears to be an exercise in futility.
The love plot
This involves the eponymous hero and heroine Troilus and Cressida, Pandarus the go-between, the Greek warrior Diomedes, and the lady’s father, Calchas. Over one thousand lines are devoted to it. Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde is a major source.
When Pandarus brings Troilus and Cressida together, Cressida readily tells Troilus that she already loves him. Before being ushered by Pandarus to bed [III.2], they both swear everlasting faithfulness to each other. (Cf Chaucer, Books 1-3.) These promises will be severely tested.
Meanwhile, Calchas (Cressida’s father, who has defected to the other side) persuades the Greek leaders (in return for services rendered) to let Cressida be conveyed to him from Troy, in exchange for Antenor, their prisoner of war [III.3]. The lovers and Pandarus receive the news the very morning after their night of lovemaking. The lovers make their protests, reassert their love for each other, and exchange articles of clothing as keepsakes, but cannot resist the decision.
This pace is speeded up, in comparison with Chaucer, Books 4-5. Contrast the leisurely narration of the epic mode and the accelerated pace characteristic of drama. This affects the spectator’s or reader’s perception of the nature of Cressida.
Two very theatrical scenes soon follow. (They are not paralleled in Chaucer.) In IV.5, when Cressida is led into the Greek camp (by Diomedes), she is kissed in turn by a series of Greek leaders – Agamemnon, Nestor, Achilles and Patroclus. They tease her, and she answers back, wittily. What is going on here? Penguin editor R A Foakes offers this interpretation:
“Hitherto silent, Cressida now joins in the ironic and bawdy wordplay, recalling her liveliness in talking with Pandarus in I.2, and rapidly adapting to her new companions. ”
[Penguin edition (1987), Commentary, page 208]
Ulysses accuses her of being “wanton” and “sluttish” [lines 56 and 62]. Surprisingly, perhaps, he agrees to Troilus’s request to smuggle him into the Greek camp to see Cressida.
Act V Scene 2 gives us multiple observers: Thersites watches Ulysses watching Troilus watching Diomedes wooing Cressida. The lady already calls Diomedes “my sweet guardian” [line 8]. Diomedes presses his suit. Cressida is ambivalent; but she does give away a love token received from Troilus himself. In her last words in the play (a monologue), she confesses that her heart follows her eye, and that now her eye is looking at her new lover. She accuses herself of “turpitude” [line 114].
Troilus is devastated by this revelation. He cannot believe his eyes and ears. Mentally, he divides Cressida into two characters – the one he knew in Troy (loyal to him) and the one he has just seen in the Greek camp (loyal to Diomedes and false to himself). “This is, and is not, Cressid!,” he says [line 149]. (His intellectual wrestling match with reality is vaguely reminiscent of that engaged in by Chaucer’s Troilus.) Later, Cressida does take the trouble to write to Troilus, but he dismisses her letter as “Words, words, words, no matter from the heart” [V.3.107], and he tears it up. By now he is preoccupied with the fighting.
At the end of the play, all three lovers – Troilus, Cressida and Diomedes – remain alive. Does this spell a happy ending for the last two? We do not know.
Misogyny
To what extent can Cressida be blamed for her behaviour? One can argue that she lives in a male-dominated society (both in Troy and the Greek camp), and that women are relatively powerless. Perhaps she really does need a “guardian”, especially when away from home – even in addition to her father. Moreover, it is the men around her who initiate actions – Pandarus, Troilus, Calchas, Diomedes, and the warriors who kiss her: she reacts.
R A Foakes sums up Cressida’s position very aptly:
“Cressida [is] a girl cast adrift in Troy with only her uncle, a humorous and immoral old bawd, for protection, a girl who becomes a piece of merchandise in the barter of war, to be traded for Antenor….[Act IV Scene 5] dramatizes the extent to which women are the playthings of warrior princes.…In Troilus and Cressida, women areweak and oppressed.”
[Penguin edition (1987), Introduction, pages 16f].
Conclusion
There are no true heroes in this play with which the reader or audience member can identify. The writing is unflattering to the characters: we are somewhat alienated from them. The motives for war are questionable. Against a background of war it is hard to start and to maintain a love relationship. The characters are unable to learn from experience. The future looks bleak, especially for the Trojans. All these factors (I would argue) make Troilus difficult to stage in such a way as to hold an audience’s interest. Does acting the characters out turn them into caricatures? It may be more suitable for a reader to study it, at leisure, in order to appreciate the philosophical arguments and the rhetoric of the great speeches.
Editions of Troilus and Cressida consulted:
Palmer, K (1982), London: Routledge, ‘Arden 2’
Foakes, RA (1987), London: Penguin (references above are to this text)
Bevington, D (1998), Walton-on-Thames: Thomas Nelson, ‘Arden 3’
and
Hyland, P (1989), Troilus and Cressida, London: Penguin, ‘Penguin Critical Studies’.
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