Troilus and Cressida

Class Notes | Secondary Sources on the Play | Some Vocabulary
Shakespeare = S; Troilus = T; Cressida = C; Pandarus = P; Diomedes = D

AK: Degree: moral center of the play may show here in Ulysses--it's bad both to inflate yourself with pride and to hollow out others. The prideful should be deflated but not derided.

Summary

Reading Notes

(to do this right, use a concordance)

Prologue:2, of all the Greeks.
1.2.19 ff., of Ajax--beastly.
1.2.33: Ajax managed to strike Hector, shaming him.
1.3.19, the Greeks' shame at stalemate in the war (except Agamemnon)
1.3.129 ff., the Grecian army is prideful, each one disdaining his superior.
1.3.142 ff., Ulysses says that Achilles is "full of his airy fame," etc.
1.3.188, Nestor calls Ajax prideful on the model of Achilles.
1.3.241 ff: Aeneas pridefully praises the Trojans (including himself), then checks himself; praises ring truer when told by one's enemy.
1.3.266: Hector's challenge is one of honor and praise-seeking.
1.3.316 fff: The plot to curb Achilles' pride. Nestor knows that Achilles will recognize himself in Hector's challenge; Ulysses agrees. 1.3.391: Achilles' and Ajax's pride will make them fight each other like dogs.
2.2.8: Hector calls himself bravest.
2.2.end: the war goes on not because of Helen (a pretext) but because of the pride of the Trojans and the possibility of winning a mighty war--on this, Hector and Troilus agree.
2.2.very-end: Hector has learned of pride in the Greek camp, and recognizes that his challenge is about pride.
2.3.87: Ajax bemoans Achilles' pride (not recognizing his own).
2.3.123 ff.: Agamemnon rails against Achilles' pride.
2.3.151 ff.: After Agamemnon appeals to Ajax's pride, Ajax (in pride) claims not to know what it is. Continued instigation of Ajax's pride. Comments by Nestor help the audience know this. Part of the instigation comes by disparaging Achilles' pride.
3.2.40: shame in love
3.2.70-72, Cressida, like Hector above, sees the necessity of adding fear [emotion] to reason. Blindness and seeing. But reason is superior to fear (cf. 3.2.88-89, bad to let fear overtake pride).
3.3.37--Diomedes proud.
3.3.251, Thersites brings a report of Ajax's pride as he prepares for Hector.
4.4.96-97, Troilus says that our pride is our betrayal of ourselves.
4.4.148, glory of Troy rests on Hector's winning his challenge.
4.5.73-75, Achilles on the pride of Hector. But line 79, Aeneas disagrees--rather, Hector is all valour and none pride (pride can look like courtesy).
4.5.290, boasting ought to be mocked.
5.2.108 ff., C ashamed of herself.
5.3.26, Hector places honor above life itself.
5.4.15, Ajax is prouder than Achilles and will not arm.
5.5.18, Ajax ought to "arm for shame" in the rout of the Greeks.
5.10.5, "the shameful field."
5.10.33, the shame of Pandarus

Prologue:23 - the Prologue is armed
1.1.1 - Troilus wants to unarm. He does, 1.2.277.
1.2.48 - Hector
1.3.235, the Trojans. Achilles is not around to hear that the Trojans are "debonair, unarm'd."
3.1.135, Helen made Paris stay unarmed; Troilus also is unarmed.
3.1.149 ff., Helen to help Hector unarm [Helen as voice of passion unarming Hector as voice of reason?]
3.3.237, Achilles wants the Trojans to see the Greeks, unarmed
3.3.239, Achilles wants to see Hector unarmed, especially (image is NOT sexual, but domesticated); repeated, 3.3.275 (but cf. 3.3.284, Patroclus playing Achilles) and (by Diomedes) 4.5.153. (This must be generally known, then.) The sniffing, 4.5.229 ff.
4.1.13: Aeneas and Diomedes may be friends in truce, though enemies armed (at war).
4.5.start, Ajax is armed for battle against Hector.
5.2.184, Hector is arming in Troy.
5.3.3, 8, 25: Andromache and Cassandra call Hector to unarm, but he won't.
5.3.35, Hector calls Troilus to unarm.
5.4.15, Ajax is prouder than Achilles and will not arm.
5.5.18, Ajax ought to "arm for shame" in the rout of the Greeks.
5.5.31, Achilles finally arms. 5.5.36, Ajax is already "arm'd and at it."
5.6.16, Achilles' "arms are out of use." (cf. two places earlier, about rusty armor)
5.6.26 s.d., Hector is "in sumptuous armour." 28, he likes the armor of a certain Greek (prob. Achilles); he will "frust it, and unlock the rivets all" (29).
5.7.9, Hector is tired and disarms. He wants Achilles to forbear, but Achilles' men kill him anyway.
5.10.44, P's poem of the bee "subdued in armed tail."

1.2.294; 2.3.238 ironic.
Helen: 3.1.66, 3.1.67, 3.1.71, 3.1.73, 3.1.84, 3.1.94, 3.1.97, 3.1.140, 3.1.144, 3.1.146, 3.1.148, 3.1.158.
Cressida: 3.2.18, 3.2.23, 3.2.51, 3.2.130, 3.2.135, 3.2.141, 5.2.8; [on C as subs. for Helen, see 4.5.279].
3.3.222; 3.3.234; 4.5.293; 5.1.26; 5.1.75-76 ironic; 5.1.88; 5.2.19; 5.2.28; 5.2.63; 5.3.15, 25; 5.10.45.

HIERARCHY (except reason-and-emotion, below, and pride-shame, above)

1.3.70 ff.: Ulysses' long speech on degree.
1.3.198 ff.: Ulysses on force vs. reason.
2.3.168: Ulysses says that Achilles makes small things more important than he should.
3.2.56: deeds over words (cf. Thersites against the plotting, plodding Grecians).
3.3.261-62, Ajax in his pride can't tell up from down (Thersites from Agamemnon)
3.3.271: hierarchy of Achilles-Patroclus-Thersites (satire by Thersites)
5.2.149 ff.: nature's order is rent by Cressida's doubleness.
5.3.26, Hector places honor above life itself.

1.1.27: Patience of Troilus (difficult). 1.2.4, patience of Hector disturbed.
1.2.75: T is "not himself," i.e. overcome by love for C.
1.3.198 ff.: Ulysses says that Ajax and Thersites "Count wisdom as no member of the war;/Forestall prescience, and esteem no act/But that of hand: the still and mental parts,/That do contrive how many hands shall strike,/When fitness calls them on; and know, by measure/Of their observant toil, the enemies' weight,--/Why, this hath not finger's dignity:/[...]/So that the ram that batters down the wall,/[...]/They place before his hand that made the engine,/Or those that with the fineness of their souls /By reason guide his execution."
2.2.24 ffff: It seems unreasonable, to Hector, to keep Helen. Troilus disagrees: he puts down reason's "spans and inches" and proportions, in comparison to Priam's "infinite" and "fathomless" cause in keeping Helen. Yet Helenus argues that Troilus does not give reasons their due. Troilus challenges any possible "reasons" for not fighting as based in the emotion of fear--reason has no place in the battle (which calls for "lustihood") if it is inspired merely by fear. Hector challenges Troilus' valuation of Helen by challenging our ability to reason well about things we love. Troilus claims instead that he actually might reason himself into choosing a wife who he didn't want. He wonders why the other Greeks have abandoned their former reasoning about taking Helen and then continuing the war. Hector grants that fear has its effect, but sees justification both from emotion and from reason that Helen should be given up (cf. Cressida, 3.2.70-72). Troilus repeats that reason can be affected by the emotion of events (cf. Cassandra). Hector returns (2.2.163), claiming that neither Paris nor Troilus has rightly understood the complexities of reason and emotion together. Though it is morally right to return Helen, he says, our pride is at stake and we should keep her.
2.2.26 ff, Troilus on reason vs. dreams [pointed out by Grene]
2.3.102: folly betrays wisdom.
2.3.173-75: "'twixt his mental and his active parts/Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages,/And batters down himself."
3.1.153, Helen as voice of passion unarming Hector as voice of reason?
3.2.70-72, Cressida, like Hector above, sees the necessity of adding fear [emotion] to reason. Blindness and seeing. But reason is superior to fear (cf. 3.2.88-89, bad to let fear overtake pride).
3.3.192-93: reason vs. love in Achilles.
3.3.261-62, Ajax in his pride can't tell up from down (Thersites from Agamemnon)
3.3.308-09: Achilles: "My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd;/And I myself see not the bottom of it."
4.4.1-2 ff., moderation not possible for Cressida; as for her emotions of grief and love, "how can I moderate it? [grief in the midst of love]/If I could temporize [compromise] with my affection,/Or brew it to a weak and colder palate,/The like allayment could I give my grief:/My love admits no qualifying dross;/No more my grief, in such a precious loss."
4.5.92-93--it's hard to fight your own kin (reason [knowing kin] vs. emotion [knowing enemy]?). Ditto 4.5.122.
4.5.96--attributes of Troilus (compared to Hector).
5.1.47-49, 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" (i.e., make their blood boil with rage at his insults).
5.1.52, Agamemnon has less brain than ear-wax.
5.2.16, D to C: "And let your mind be coupled with your words."
5.2, Troilus and self-control. Especially 5.2.54-55: "There is between my will and all offences/A guard of patience" and 5.2.64-65: "I will not be myself, nor have cognition/Of what I feel: I am all patience."
5.2.108 ff., Cressida:

5.2.165, Mars and Venus.
5.3.16, 19, 23-24: Hector's wife and sister, oddly perhaps, counsel reason over emotion: "The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows" (16); "be persuaded" (19). "It is the purpose that makes strong the vow;/But vows to every purpose must not hold" (23-24).
5.3.37-48, Troilus chides Hector for his mercy in battle, which Hector calls merely "fair play." Troilus would be merciless; Hector calls him a savage for it.

DOUBLENESS/ATTEMPT AT SINGLENESS/BEING SEEN (as different than one is)/ STEREOTYPE/IDENTITY/TRUENESS AND FALSENESS AND BETRAYAL (in reason, love, and war)/TESTING/COMPARISONS (except reason-emotion)

• Cressida
• Others

Prologue:22 - "hither am I come/A prologue arm'd,--but not in confidence/Of author's pen or actor's voice; but suited/In like conditions as our argument,--/To tell you, fair beholders, that our play/Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,/Beginning in the middle; starting thence away/To what may be digested in a play."

1.1.3 - Troilus sees "such cruel battle here within" Troy, so why need an external war? Ditto 1.1.115.
1.1.4-5: T - Trojan may be a "master of his heart" (but T has no heart for the battle)
1.1.6: Pandarus -- "Will this gear ne'er be mended?"
1.1.15 ff.: the baking metaphor--the many steps required to make something into something new. [use concordance to locate other baking imagery; e.g. stew of 3.1.42)
1.1.35-38: T's heart "would rive in twain"--to avoid being seen sighing for love (by Hector or Priam), he must bury his sadness with a smile.
1.1.66-68: P, about C: "Let her be as she is: if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands."
1.1.75: P would see C differently if she were related to him.
1.1.91-94: "Helen must needs be fair,/When with your blood you daily paint her thus."--T resists this stereotype: "I cannot fight upon this argument;/It is too starved [empty] a subject for my sword."
1.1.95-97: T accepts P's stereotyped role--but in T's eyes P resists his role, as does C in his eyes: "he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo,/As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit." -- Who are they three, really? (1.1.100). T is himself, 1.2.66--identity discussion, 1.2.63 ff.--C is stressing that each one is as he is, and need not be another (T, 1.2.70, Hector, 1.2.86 ff., Paris, 1.2.99). P asks C if she knows what a man is, if she sees one, 1.2.63 and 1.2.254.
1.2.13: Ajax is part Trojan.
1.2.60: P makes comparisons to lessen C (cf. 1.1), but to increase T, in the eyes of the other (ditto 1.2.end).
1.2.75: T is "not himself," i.e. overcome by love for C.
1.2.96-97: confusions: brown and not, true and not.
1.2.end -- all about watching the soldiers and comparing them to Troilus--and P encouraging C to see them (not as they are but as P wants her to see them)--and seeing T, 1.2.232-35.
1.2.215: Paris is not hurt after all--the report was false, the seeing is true.
1.2.255: Cressida sees more in Troilus than P does.
1.2.263 ff.: C relies on such as her "mask, to defend my beauty"--defending her real self against others. Ditto 1.2.298.
1.2.272: "unless it swell past hiding, and then it's past watching." [unpack]
1.2.274: P says C is "such another!"
1.2.284: C says P is "a bawd" by token.
1.2.288: she sees more in T than P can talk about or reflect with his once-removed "glass"
1.2.296-98: "Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech:/Then, though my heart's content firm love doth bear,/Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear." -- parallel to authorial control of character.
1.3.3-5: hope fails us (the Greeks)
1.3.146 fff.: Ulysses says that Patroclus (at Achilles' urging) incorrectly parodies ("pageants") the other Greeks. Nestor adds that many others parody in the same wrongheaded style.
1.3.223, Aeneas asks how he can recognize the look of a general (Agamemnon). Once he knows the truth he can act on it.
1.3.235, the Trojans are famed to be debonair "as bending angels" in peacetime.
1.3.313: Nestor has been stereotyped to be the one who repeats and develops others' thoughts.
1.3.early - seeing problems as divine tests.
1.3.337 fff.--the Trojans are testing the quality of the Greeks, judging the army by the one fight, using limbs as scientific instruments. Ulysses responds by trying to fool them, by wanting to send Ajax rather than Achilles to meet their challenge. This also ensures that the Greeks can go on thinking they have better men (e.g. Achilles, who won't have been tested) than the Trojans.
2.1.30: Thersites compares Ajax to others equally slow in battle.
2.2.8: Hector calls himself bravest.
2.2.63: Hector recognizes that we incorrectly value things compared to their real value.
2.2.Troilus: shows how emotions, esp. fear, betray our reason.
2.2.162: Paris says that Helen is beyond compare.
2.3.102: folly betrays wisdom.
2.3.142 ff.: Achilles is "no more than what he thinks he is," and maybe less. Ajax compares himself to Achilles.
2.3.250: Nestor is stereotyped as wise (though satirically)" "He must, he is, he cannot but be wise:--"
2.3.246-48: the very words of praise themselves limit the extent of the quality praised.
3.1.34-36: Pandarus mistakes Helen's attributes for Cressida's, says the servant, but P says that the servant just hasn't properly seen C.
3.1.early: much imagery of parts and wholes.
3.1.all: Helen stereotyped (satirically) as sweet.
3.2.47: "picture" to permanently claim Troilus and Cressida as lovers.
3.2.70-72, Cressida, like Hector above, sees the necessity of adding fear [emotion] to reason. Blindness and seeing. But reason is superior to fear (cf. 3.2.88-89, bad to let fear overtake pride).
3.2.90-99: Troilus' trueness to be tested.
3.2.118 ff: Cressida claiming (and showing) falseness to herself [reason and emotion together]; she tries to shun herself--UNPACK. Can man be wise and love at the same time? Troilus however is not complex but simple (love without reason?).
3.2.end--the stereotypical roles of T, C, and P.
3.3.beginning -- Calchas is a traitor.
3.3.45-50: Ulysses has words for Achilles about his pride; 3.3.96: Ulysses says those words: people cannot know themselves except by seeing their effect upon others--they see themselves reflected back.
3.3.137 ff., Ulysses on pride in general; Ulysses on the fickleness and betrayals of time and especially of men. "The present eye praises the present object" (3.3.180).
3.3.261-62, Ajax in his pride can't tell up from down (Thersites from Agamemnon)
4.1.12 ff: Aeneas and Diomedes may be friends in truce, though enemies armed (at war)--doubleness of the relation: "The one and other Diomed embraces" (4.1.15). Ditto 4.1.24-25 ff, being able to love that which we also mean to kill.
4.1.41-42, Paris moves from thinking to "certain knowledge" (about Troilus and Cressida)
4.1.48-50: Paris: "There is no help;/The bitter disposition of the time/Will have it so."
4.2.end -- Paris: he and Diomedes commodify Helen; he emphasizes the difference between her real worth and what Diomedes claims.
4.2.12--time betrays Troilus and Cressida.
4.2.16 ff.: Cressida: "You men will never tarry.--" --is this about men in general, or is this from her own experience? That she talks of knowing what she ought've done, and what Pandarus will do, almost makes me think the latter, which would make C bad indeed, but then P's joke is about maidenhead so I think the former is true. 4.2.22: "I shall have such a life!" [stereotype?]
4.2.39, C says that T is deceived as to her motives. 4.2.41, she doesn't want Troy to know that T is in her bed, though everybody knows.
4.2.55, Aeneas to Pandarus: "you'll be so true to him to be false to him"
4.2.65, betrayal of Cressida (again)
4.2.69--T's achievements mock [betray?] him
4.2.76,88--P false to Antenor.
4.2.98, C has given up her father and indeed all her family ties, in comparison to T [this severely strains the Oedipal reading].
4.2.101-02: C asking the gods to initiate the stereotype of her name (as false) if she leaves Troilus/Troy. Time, force, and death as the great betrayers of the body (see 4.4.43).
4.2.109-10: C will betray herself before T (though this looks like more hyperbole).
4.4.21: P says we should betray nothing, "cast away nothing"

** by IV.iv, Cressida has reconciled herself to being lost to the Greeks. Compare her reaction to Pandarus to her reaction toTroilus, when each tells her she must go.

4.4.94 ff, Troilus: we betray ourselves--especially by pride, which gets us into trouble.
4.4.59-108--Troilus and Cressida on being true to each other. Troilus as stuck in his stereotype of trueness.
4.4.112--T will tell Diomedes how great she is (as though D. couldn't know for himself?) But in 4.4.118-119, D seems to know for himself. T doesn't take D's words very well, and insists that T can praise C better than D can. But D just calls them as he sees them; Troilus overstates the case; Diomedes judges her on her merits: 4.4.133-34, "to her own worth/She shall be prized."
4.5.55-63, Ulysses on Cressida's multiple languages, coming wantonly from all her parts, after the kissing scene.
4.5.74-75, Achilles: Hector misprizes Ajax. Line 81, Aeneas: Achilles misjudges Hector.
4.5.83 ff, Ajax's doubleness: he is "half Trojan and half Greek."
4.5.229 ff., Achilles and Hector compare their muscles. Hector, line 241: "Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?" (It's b/c Achilles means to kill him, 4.5.242 ff.--cf. ACHILLES' HEEL.)
5.1.1-3, true to his word, but in betrayal, Achilles plans to get Hector drunk overnight in order to kill him the next day.
5.1.41, Achilles will not break his oath, however, regarding Hecuba's daughter.
5.1.53-54 ff., acrchetypal Menelaus: "the primitive statue, and oblique memorial of cuckolds"--Thersites asks, how do we see M, except as ox or ass, which he already is? Thersites talks about what animals he'd rather be than Menelaus.
5.1.end, Diomedes is false-hearted.
5.2, scene of C's betrayal. We see Th watching T & U watching D & C watching each other.
5.2.16, D to C: "And let your mind be coupled with your words."
5.2.27, C wants to get out of her oath to D that she would be false to Troilus.
5.2.64-65: T: "I will not be myself, nor have cognition/Of what I feel: I am all patience."
5.2.71, C recognizes her doubleness/falseness, but too late.
5.2.108 ff., Cressida:

5.2.123 ff., T cannot believe that it was really C. speaking. *****
5.2.137, T bluffs (swaggers) himself.
5.2.138 ff.: Cressida is double--the stereotyped one is Diomedes'; the real one is Troilus'. Cressida sets herself up as both false and true (like a lawyer arguing both sides of a point). Especially 5.2.179 on C's falseness; her name is stained [forever].
5.3.90, Hector is betraying Troy by fighting, against the wishes of his family.
5.3.111-12, C's words vs. her deeds.
5.4.21, Troilus misreads Diomedes' action.
5.5.27-28, Hector is single-minded: "Dexterity so obeying appetite,/That what he will he does."
5.6.6, Diomedes called traitor by T.
5.8 and 5.9: Achilles wants to report how he bravely killed Hector, when really his men did most of it.
5.10.11, T says Aeneas does not understand him.
5.10.31, "Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe" --said by T (cf. C!) ***
5.10.33-34, Pandarus given his name for posterity.