These are just some very brief questions and observations whittled down and altered from my full commentary on Troilus and Cressida. They may prove useful for participating in class discussion. If you want to view the full questions and commentary set, just follow the relevant links in the sitewide menu bar above.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida. Folio. (The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies, 3rd ed. 812-89.)
Prologue (812-13, a prologue-speaker sets the scene, and tells us that the story will—like Homer’s epics—begin in medias res, i.e. in the middle of the action.)
The Prologue reminds us of the play’s heroic Homeric backdrop, but the play intensifies the disillusionment that besets both love and war—activities that often begin with high ideals and unrealistic expectations, and end in bitterness and frustration, even when the object is attained. The Prologue is dressed in armor, and bears himself with admirable humility.” (813, 1.0.31).
Shakespeare shares with Homer a keen sense that swirling beneath heroic ideals and quests is a strong undercurrent of contrary passions, impulses, and objectives. Some of Troilus and Cressida’s characters show a painful awareness of this—an insight that gives the play a cynical edge.
Act 1, Scene 1 (812-16, Troilus won’t enter the fray as war rages between his own Trojan side and the Greeks because he is suffering the torments of his unreturned affection for Cressida; the girl’s uncle, Pandarus, complains that Troilus is too precipitate and not sufficiently thankful for Pandarus’s efforts in his service; finally, Troilus goes off with Aeneas to battle.)
Shakespeare’s play begins seven years into the Trojan War, not ten as does Homer’s Iliad. Troilus reveals in conversation with Pandarus that he is as far out of sync with the war’s imperatives as the sulking hero Achilles, who is angry with King Agamemnon for taking away his prized concubine, Briseis: “Why should I war without the walls of Troy / That find such cruel battle here within?” (813, 1.1.2-3) The young man sounds like a Petrarchan sonneteer.
Pandarus is eager to spur Troilus on as a lover, increasing his lovesickness with comparisons between the magnificent Helen and his niece Cressida: “Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw / her look, or any woman else” (814, 1.1.30-31). Troilus is in no danger of being unsmitten by the fair Cressida: “Helen must needs be fair / When with your blood you daily paint her thus. / I cannot fight upon this argument …” (815, 1.1.85-88).
Paris has been slightly wounded by Menelaus (816, 1.1.105). Troilus’s judgment is, “Let Paris bleed—‘tis but a scar to scorn; / Paris is gored with Menelaus’ horn” (816, 1.1.106-07). As this reference to cuckoldry suggests, Shakespeare’s play undercuts the heroic version of the Trojan War’s cause. The play sides with Thersites, who sees love and war as unhappily intertwined.
Act 1, Scene 2 (816-22, Cressida converses with her male servant, then with Pandarus, who promotes Troilus’s qualities to her; Cressida and Pandarus observe the procession of Trojans returning home from battle, and Cressida, by herself, admits that she is taken with Troilus.)
Cressida’s manservant tells her that Hector is upset since Ajax has “coped Hector in the battle and / struck him down …” (817, 1.2.30-31). Cressida herself is only moved to smile at the absurdity of the picture that the servant creates to describe Ajax, and wonders how such an individual could so affect the great Trojan. Hector is spurred on by his shame to challenge any Greek to maintain that his lady is as good as Andromache.
Does Hector’s wounded pride make the Trojans seems more human? Hector seems concerned to preserve from the ravages and fortunes of battle his sense of honor—he lives by something like the medieval honor code operative in the “Matter of Troy” texts that Shakespeare drew from in crafting his play. The Greeks, in comparison to Hector, seem wilier, more mercenary.
Pandarus pursues his private interest of bringing Troilus and Cressida together, and his attempt consists mainly in playing up the virtues and valor of Troilus even over Hector: according to Pandarus, “Troilus is the better man of the two” (817, 1.2.56). Cressida finds her uncle’s claims dubious, and the sexual nature of some of her banter with him makes her appear worldly.
Soon, there follows a pageant of Trojans: Aeneas, Hector, and others (819-20, 1.2.164ff). Cressida opines that Troilus is a “sneaking fellow” (820, 1.2.208). But her most pressing concern is to maintain her chastity: “Achievement is command; ungained, beseech” (822, 1.2.271, see 260-73).
What Cressida says rings true as a matter of sexual politics in a patriarchal society. It doesn’t equate to wide-eyed innocence. Cressida does not “speak like a green girl,” as Polonius says in Hamlet when he accuses his daughter Ophelia of naivete.
Act 1, Scene 3 (822-30, Agamemnon, Nestor, and Ulysses talk over Achilles and Ajax’s present refusal to participate in the war; the Trojan prince Aeneas arrives and delivers Hector’s challenge of single combat; thinking Achilles too high and mighty for anyone’s good, Ulysses and Nestor plot to give the combat honors to Ajax instead.)
In council, Agamemnon says that the Greeks have been undergoing the “protractive trials of great Jove / To find persistive constancy in men …” (822, 1.3.19-20). That must be why, he implies, so many years have passed with no victory. Beyond that, the joint argument from the King and Nestor is (to paraphrase) “trust us—this is wise policy beyond your devising.”
Ulysses warns everyone not to let rank and hierarchy lapse: he reformulates the concept that medieval and early modern scholars call the Great Chain of Being: everything has its place above or below someone or something else, and this order of persons and things is rightly established and firm: “The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center / Observe degree, priority, and place, / Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, / Office, and custom, in all line of order” (824, 1.3.84-87). Ulysses admonishes the King and his chiefs, “Take but degree away, untune that string, / And hark what discord follows …” (824, 1.3.109).
Why is there a hierarchy problem among the Greeks? Ulysses explains that respect for rank is low thanks to Achilles’s prideful refusal late in the war to do his part.
There are serious rifts between the Greek commanders. In truth, it’s hard to see how Agamemnon’s “policy” amounts to anything but incompetence. And thus all things decline to stupidity, and there’s an end of wisdom and strategy—brute force takes the palm. That is the substance of what Ulysses says in his long speech.
Soon, the Trojan prince Aeneas arrives and asks rather elegantly where he might find Agamemnon, and delivers Hector’s challenge: Hector will fight any Greek who dares claim his woman is better than Hector’s lovely, virtuous wife, Andromache. She is, says Hector, “wiser, fairer, truer / Than ever Greek did compass in his arms …” (828, 1.3.272-73). Agamemnon’s reply shows how inextricable love and war are in this play: “may that soldier a mere recreant prove / That means not, hath not, or is not in love” (828, 1.3.284-85)
Ulysses has a scheme to keep prideful love-matters from impeding a Greek victory. Hector’s challenge is aimed at Achilles, but the wily King of Ithaca wants to arrange for Ajax to win a lottery for the honor of facing Hector. Besides, as Nestor suggests, if Achilles were to lose such a duel, the Greeks would lose face: he is, after all, their most imposing warrior.
To be continued ….
Last Updated on February 21, 2025 by ajd_shxpr