The History of Troilus and Cressida

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1. ACT I.

   An armed Prologue sets the scene; Troilus pines for Cressida as Pandarus stalls; in the Greek camp Ulysses diagnoses the stalled siege as a failure of 'degree' and plots to rouse the sulking Achilles.

   1. Scene 1 — Troy. Before PRIAM'S palace

      After the armed Prologue announces the war 'begun in the middle,' Troilus tells Pandarus he is too sick with love for Cressida to fight. Pandarus, Cressida's uncle and the lovers' go-between, frets that his efforts go unthanked. News of the day's battle calls Troilus to arms.

   2. Scene 2 — Troy. A street

      Cressida and her man Alexander watch as the Trojan lords return from the field; Pandarus praises Troilus to her extravagantly. Alone, Cressida admits she loves Troilus but will hold off, knowing 'men prize the thing ungained more than it is.'

   3. Scene 3 — The Grecian camp. Before AGAMEMNON'S tent

      In the Greek camp Agamemnon, Nestor, and Ulysses ask why seven years' siege has failed. Ulysses answers with the great speech on 'degree' — order itself has come untuned, for Achilles lies idle in his tent mocking the generals with Patroclus. When Hector sends a challenge to single combat, Ulysses and Nestor plot to rig the choice so that blockish Ajax, not Achilles, is the Greek champion, to sting Achilles's pride.

2. ACT II.

   Ajax and Thersites brawl; the Trojans debate and decide to keep Helen; the Greeks flatter Ajax to spite Achilles.

   1. Scene 1 — The Grecian camp

      The scurrilous Thersites trades insults with and is beaten by the dull-witted Ajax, railing at the stupidity of both Ajax and Achilles and at the whole war as 'nothing but wars and lechery.'

   2. Scene 2 — Troy. PRIAM'S palace

      In Priam's council the Trojans debate whether to end the war by returning Helen. Hector argues by reason that she is not worth the lives she costs; Troilus and Paris answer that honour and 'worth' lie in what men will pay. Cassandra runs in prophesying Troy's destruction. Hector, persuaded against his own argument, agrees to keep Helen.

   3. Scene 3 — The Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES

      Achilles refuses to leave his tent. Ulysses has the generals lavish praise on Ajax as their champion and pointedly ignore Achilles, baiting his vanity. Ajax swells with self-importance.

3. ACT III.

   Pandarus sings of love at Paris's; he brings Troilus and Cressida together to vow love and go to bed; the Greeks arrange to exchange Cressida for a prisoner, and Ulysses lectures Achilles on the decay of fame.

   1. Scene 1 — Troy. PRIAM'S palace

      At Paris's, Pandarus exchanges bawdy courtesies with Helen and Paris and sings a wanton song, 'Love, love, nothing but love.' The talk of Helen reduces the war's cause to idle dalliance.

   2. Scene 2 — Troy. PANDARUS' orchard

      Pandarus brings the lovers together in his orchard. Troilus and Cressida confess their love and pledge faith: Troilus swears to be the very pattern of truth, Cressida that her name shall be the byword for falsehood if she proves untrue, and Pandarus that go-betweens shall be called 'pandars' after him. They go to bed.

   3. Scene 3 — The Greek camp

      Calchas asks the Greeks to trade the captured Trojan Antenor for his daughter Cressida, and it is granted. To humble Achilles, Ulysses has the generals snub him, then tells him that reputation must be ceaselessly renewed — 'Time hath a wallet at his back' — and reveals that the Greeks know of his secret love for the Trojan princess Polyxena.

4. ACT IV.

   Cressida is exchanged to the Greeks and parts from Troilus with vows and tokens; in the Greek camp she is kissed by the generals, and Hector and Ajax fight a courteous, inconclusive duel.

   1. Scene 1 — Troy. A street

      In Troy, Aeneas meets the Greek Diomedes, who has come to fetch Cressida; they exchange chivalric threats. The exchange of Cressida for Antenor is confirmed.

   2. Scene 2 — Troy. The court of PANDARUS' house

      After their first night together, Troilus and Cressida part at dawn amid Pandarus's leering jests, until word arrives that she must be handed over to the Greeks.

   3. Scene 3 — Troy. A street before PANDARUS' house

      Troilus is briefly summoned to deliver Cressida to Diomedes for the exchange.

   4. Scene 4 — Troy. PANDARUS' house

      Troilus and Cressida take a grief-stricken leave. They exchange love-tokens — his sleeve, her glove — and vow constancy; Troilus, uneasy, begs her to be true among the 'merry Greeks,' and Diomedes leads her away.

   5. Scene 5 — The Grecian camp. Lists set out

      Cressida reaches the Greek camp and is kissed in turn by the generals, Ulysses scorning her as 'a daughter of the game.' Hector and Ajax (who are cousins) fight their single combat, but Hector breaks it off for kinship's sake. Hector is feasted in the Greek camp amid courtesies and veiled menace, and Achilles studies him, marking where he will strike.

5. ACT V.

   Troilus secretly watches Cressida give his token to Diomedes; against omens Hector goes to battle; in the fighting Patroclus is killed and Achilles has the unarmed Hector slaughtered, leaving Troy in grief and Pandarus to a diseased farewell.

   1. Scene 1 — The Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES

      Thersites rails as Achilles receives a letter from Troy — from Queen Hecuba and his love Polyxena — binding him by an oath to keep out of the next day's battle.

   2. Scene 2 — The Grecian camp. Before CALCHAS' tent

      Hidden and guided by Ulysses, Troilus watches Cressida flirt with Diomedes and give him the very sleeve Troilus gave her. His faith shatters — 'This is, and is not, Cressid' — while Thersites jeers that it is all 'lechery.'

   3. Scene 3 — Troy. Before PRIAM'S palace

      In Troy, Andromache and the prophetess Cassandra beg Hector not to fight, warning of his death; Priam too urges him to stay. Hector insists on honour and goes. Troilus, bent on revenge for Cressida, tears up Pandarus's letter from her.

   4. Scene 4 — The plain between Troy and the Grecian camp

      On the field Thersites dodges the fighting and gloats over the carnage, summing up the war as knaves and fools destroying one another.

   5. Scene 5 — Another part of the plain

      Diomedes sends Troilus's captured horse to Cressida as a trophy. Agamemnon reports the day's losses; word comes that the enraged Achilles is now seeking Hector after Patroclus's death.

   6. Scene 6 — Another part of the plain

      Troilus fights furiously, battling both Diomedes and Ajax; Hector meets and spares the weary Achilles.

   7. Scene 7 — Another part of the plain

      Achilles charges his Myrmidons to surround Hector when he finds him; Thersites evades a fight with Priam's bastard son Margarelon.

   8. Scene 8 — Another part of the plain

      Achilles finds Hector unarmed and resting and has his Myrmidons cut him down, then drags the body — a murder, not a duel, that destroys the play's last image of heroic honour.

   9. Scene 9 — Another part of the plain

      Achilles proclaims his 'victory,' ordering Hector's corpse tied to his horse's tail to be dragged about the field.

   10. Scene 10 — Another part of the plain

       Troilus brings word of Hector's death and Troy's coming ruin, cursing Achilles and the 'traitor' Pandarus. Pandarus is left to speak a bitter Epilogue, bequeathing his diseases to the audience.

Characters

• Troilus protagonist

  The youngest of King Priam's warrior sons, in love with Cressida. Idealistic and absolute in feeling, he swears eternal truth when Pandarus brings them together, then is forced to give her up to the Greeks in a prisoner exchange. Hidden, he watches her transfer her love to the Greek Diomedes, and his faith collapses ('This is, and is not, Cressid'). He turns to bitter revenge as Troy slides toward ruin. His name became, through this story, the very type of the faithful lover betrayed.

• Cressida deuteragonist

  Daughter of the Trojan priest Calchas, who has defected to the Greeks. Witty, guarded, and clear-eyed about how men value what they cannot have, she loves Troilus but holds off until her uncle Pandarus brings them together. Traded to the Greek camp for the prisoner Antenor, friendless among enemies, she swiftly takes the protection of Diomedes — fulfilling the 'false Cressid' tradition the play both stages and interrogates. (Present her 'falseness' as a critical problem, not a settled verdict: she is bartered between men who escape the blame.)

• Pandarus major

  Cressida's uncle, who busily brings the two lovers together — and from his name English gets the word 'pander' (a go-between for illicit sex). Bawdy, gossiping, and self-pitying, he reduces love to brokerage as Thersites reduces war to lechery. He ends the play diseased and rejected, speaking a sour Epilogue that bequeaths his 'diseases' to the audience.

• Hector major

  Priam's eldest son and Troy's greatest warrior, the one figure of genuine chivalry in the play. In the council he argues by reason that Helen is not worth the war, then yields to 'honour' and keeps fighting. Magnanimous to a fault — he spares the weary Achilles in battle — he is caught unarmed and butchered by Achilles's Myrmidons, a murder that destroys the play's last image of heroic honour.

• Ulysses major

  The cleverest of the Greek leaders (Homer's Odysseus). He delivers the play's great speech on 'degree' — the cosmic hierarchy whose collapse, he argues, is why the seven-year siege has stalled — and schemes to humble the sulking Achilles by promoting the dull Ajax and by lecturing him that fame must be ceaselessly renewed ('Time hath a wallet at his back'). His eloquence is matched by a cold, manipulative politics.

• Achilles major

  The greatest Greek warrior, who sulks in his tent with his companion Patroclus and refuses to fight, out of pride and a secret love for the Trojan princess Polyxena. Roused at last by Patroclus's death, he does not meet Hector in fair combat but has his Myrmidons surround and kill the unarmed Trojan, then drags the body — the play's harshest deflation of epic heroism.

• Thersites major

  A 'deformed and scurrilous' Greek (from Homer's Iliad, the one common soldier who rails at the chiefs), here the play's foul-mouthed chorus. He attaches himself to Ajax and then Achilles, abusing everyone and summing up the whole war as 'nothing but wars and lechery.' His scurrility is the play's nastiest voice — report it as such, not as endorsement.

• Agamemnon supporting

  The Greek general and commander-in-chief, brother of Menelaus, presiding over a council that cannot make the great Achilles obey. Dignified but ineffectual, he leans on Ulysses's and Nestor's counsel.

• Nestor supporting

  The aged, long-winded Greek counsellor, famous for his years and his proverbs, who seconds Ulysses's schemes against Achilles.

• Ajax supporting

  A massive, slow-witted Greek warrior, part Trojan by blood (cousin to Hector), whom the leaders flatter into serving as their champion to spite the absent Achilles. Vain and easily gulled, he is the butt of Thersites's abuse.

• Diomedes supporting

  A blunt, hard Greek commander who fetches Cressida from Troy and quickly becomes her protector and lover in the Greek camp, winning from her the love-token Troilus gave her. He embodies the cynical appetite the play sets against Troilus's idealism.

• Priam supporting

  The aged King of Troy, father of Hector, Troilus, Paris, and many more, who presides over the council that decides to keep Helen and pleads in vain with Hector not to fight on his last day.

• Paris supporting

  Priam's son whose abduction of Helen began the war. He lives with Helen amid bawdy ease and argues, with Troilus, that honour requires they keep her — making his private appetite the public cause.

• Aeneas supporting

  A Trojan commander who carries Hector's challenge to the Greeks and arranges the exchange of Cressida. Courteous and chivalric, he moves easily between the two camps under the war's strange etiquette.

• Patroclus supporting

  Achilles's close companion, who keeps him idle and amused in his tent (the camp jeers at their intimacy). His death in battle is what finally drives Achilles back to the field to kill Hector.

• Menelaus minor

  Agamemnon's brother and Helen's wronged husband, the man for whose sake the war is nominally fought; he is mostly mocked as a cuckold.

• Calchas minor

  A Trojan priest who has foreseen Troy's fall and defected to the Greeks; he persuades them to trade the prisoner Antenor for his daughter Cressida, setting the lovers' separation in motion.

• Cassandra minor

  Priam's daughter, a prophetess fated never to be believed, who breaks into the council and into Hector's last morning crying that Troy will burn and Hector will die.

• Andromache minor

  Hector's wife, who, warned by dreams and Cassandra's prophecy, begs him in vain not to go to battle on the day he is killed.

• Helen minor

  Helen of Troy, wife of Menelaus, now living with Paris in Troy — the war's cause, shown not as a tragic beauty but as an idle, flirtatious figure trading bawdy talk with Pandarus.

• Deiphobus minor

  One of Priam's sons, a Trojan prince who takes part in the council and the war.

• Helenus minor

  A son of Priam and a priest, who urges restraint in the Trojan council and is taunted by Troilus for preferring reason to valour.

• Antenor minor

  A Trojan commander captured by the Greeks; the exchange of him for Cressida is what tears the lovers apart. He is a near-silent presence whose value to Troy drives the plot.

• Margarelon minor

  A bastard son of Priam who appears in the final battle, challenging and scorned by the coward Thersites.

• Alexander minor

  Cressida's servant, who in 1.2 describes the Trojan and Greek warriors to her as they pass.

• Servant minor

  The shared speech-prefix for several serving-men (of Pandarus, Paris, and Diomedes) who carry messages and exchange wit with their masters.

• Boy minor

  Troilus's page, who brings his master word in 1.2 and fetches Pandarus to him.

• Myrmidon minor

  One of Achilles's followers, the Myrmidons, who in the final battle surround and kill the unarmed Hector at their leader's command.

• Soldiers ensemble

  Greek soldiers who cry out together within, spreading the news that Hector is slain.

• Prologue chorus

  The 'armed Prologue' who opens the play, setting the scene before Troy in the war's seventh year and announcing that the action 'leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils, beginning in the middle.'

• All ensemble

  A unison speech-prefix for several characters speaking together.

Cross-references

• Folger Shakespeare
• MIT plain text
• Wikipedia