Troilus and Cressida

“In Troilus and Cressida Shakespeare tried for the first time to combine in dramatic terms a story of love with a story of public affairs. It is worth noting that in the major tragedies that follow, the personal fate of the hero is inextricably bound up in the world of the state, and that in Troilus Shakespeare made his first real study of the relationship between the pressures of the public world and the survival of love. (p. xxxiii)

“O, Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus, -
When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown’d.
Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrench’d. I tell thee I am mad
In Cressid’s love: thou answer’st `she is fair;’
Pour’st in the open ulcer of my heart
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,
Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink,
Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure
The cygnet’s down is harsh and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell’st me,
As true thou tell’st me, when I say I love her;
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay’st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.”

“I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
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 repured nectar? Death, I fear me,
Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine,
Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness,
For the capacity of my ruder powers:
I fear it much; and I do fear besides,
That I shall lose distinction in my joys;
As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
The enemy flying.”

“PANDARUS: Asses, fools, dolts! Chaff and bran, chaff and bran! Porridge after meat! I could live and die i’ the eyes of Troilus. Ne’er look, ne’er look: the eagles are gone: crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece.

CRESSIDA: There is among the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus.

P: Achilles! A drayman, a porter, a very camel.

C: Well, well.

P: `Well, well!’ 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 like, the spice and salt that seasons a man?

C: Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked with no date in the pie, for then the man’s date’s out.

P: You are such a woman! One knows not at what ward you lie.

C: Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these: and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand watches.

P: Say one of your watches.

C: Nay, I’ll watch you for that; and that’s one of the chiefest of them too: if I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it’s past watching.

P: You are such another!” (Act 1, scene 2)

“Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart.
Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day for many weary months….

Hard to seem won: but I was won, my lord,
With the first glance that ever – pardon me –
If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.
I love you now; but not, till now, so much
But I might master it: in faith, I lie;
My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown
Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!
Why have I blabb’d? who shall be true to us,
When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
But, though I love you well, I woo’d you not;
And yet, good faith, I wish’d myself a man,
Or that we women had men’s privilege
Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,
For in this rapture I shall surely speak
The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,
Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws
My very soul of counsel! Stop my mouth.” (Act 3, scene 2)

“I take to-day a wife, and my election is led on in the conduct of my will;
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots ‘twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgment: how may I avoid,
Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I chose? There can be no evasion
To blench from this and to stand firm by honor:
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant,
When we have soil’d them, nor the remainder viands
We do not throw in unrespective sieve,
Because now we are full. It was thought meet
Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks:
Your breath of full consent bellied his sails;
The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce
And did him service: he touch’d the ports desired,
And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive,
He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo’s, and makes stale the morning.
Why keep we her? The Grecians keep our aunt:
Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl,
Whose price hath launch’d above a thousand ships,
And turn’d crown’d kings to merchants.
If you’ll avouch ‘twas wisdom Paris went –
As you must needs, for you all cried `Go, go,’ –
If you’ll confess he brought home noble prize –
As you must needs, for you all clapp’d your hands
And cried `Inestimable!’ – why do you now
The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,
And do a deed that fortune never did,
Beggar the estimation which you prized
Richer than sea and land? O, theft most base,
That we have stol’n what we do fear to keep!
But, thieves, unworthy of a thing so stol’n,
That in their country did them that disgrace,
We fear to warrant in our native place!” Act 2, scene 2)

“ACHILLES: Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set;
How ugly night comes breathing at his heels:
Even with the vail and darking of the sun,
To close the day up, Hector’s life is done.

HECTOR: I am unarm’d; forego this vantage, Greek.

A: Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek.
So, Ilion, fall thou next! Now, Troy, sink down!
Here lies they heart, thy sinews, and thy bone.
On, Myrmidons, and cry you all amain,
`Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.’” Act 5, scene 8

The begining totally feels like a Romeo/Juliet s

The begining totally feels like a Romeo/Juliet set-up, though Cressida is pretending not to be in love with Troilus as she doesn't want him to think she's easily won. However, the two do eventually come to an understanding, just in time for everything to go wrong, which is where Shakespeare changes it up on us. (view spoiler)[Circumstances seperate Troilus and Cressida, and after both exchanging tokens and words of everlasting love, they are parted. Fate lends a hand in letting Troilus come to see Cressida latter the same week, and she's already flirting with another guy and gives him the token that Troilus gave her! Then comes the battle where Hector dies, and Troilus rampages a bit, before the play abruptly ends. Neither of them dies or ever has a real confrontation, she never knows that he found out she was unfaithful and he doesn't get revenge on her jerky new lover! (hide spoiler)]

As I said, with no real confrontation, a very un-satisfying conclusion and the most interesting characters kept off stage for most of the play, it wasn't very much fun.

Content warnings: the innuendos are more blatent than usual; Cressida and Troilus sleep together with no vows exchanged; though it is set during war, the rantings of the warriors are usually more gruesome than the actual fights. Very puzzled as to why the library system had this shelved in the teen section.

Thersites: Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk. Thou art said to be Achilles' male varlet.
Patroclus: Male varlet, you rogue. What's that?
Thersites: Why, his masculine whore.