Troilus and Cressida

Shakespeare utilizes a common convention of classical and renaissance drama in the form of the Prologue. In this convention, a chorus or a character named “Prologue” or “Rumor” introduces the audience to the play, familiarizing them with its context and hinting at the play’s important themes. Structurally, the advantage of the Prologue convention is that it frees the writer from including exposition within the acts, leaving the flow of the action unimpeded by backstory. 

This convention is particularly useful in plays that reference history or other literature, such as Troilus and Cressida. The Prologue in Troilus and Cressida is short, alluding to the backstory of the Trojan War as well as Chaucer’s poem, both of which would be well-known to Shakespeare’s audience. The ending couplet of the Prologue—“Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are: / Now good or bad, ‘tis but the chance of war” (Prologue, 30-31)—hint at the play’s ambiguity. These lines suggest that victory in war is more a matter of chance than any clear moral stance. Thus, the lines encapsulate the play’s cynical attitude towards war and skepticism, introducing the theme of Disillusionment With Romantic and Heroic Ideals.

The first three scenes switch between the internal realm of romance and the external world of politics, foreshadowing that idealistic love is a chimera in times of war. Troilus, pining for Cressida, represents youth, idealism, and romance: All he wants is to avoid war and spend time with the woman he loves. He even hints at the futility of all wars, calling both Trojan and Greek warriors “fools.”

It is immediately obvious that Troilus’s views exist in a fragile bubble, as illustrated by the movement in the scene. Just as Troilus has extolled Cressida to Pandarus in Scene 1, Aeneas enters the stage and wonders why Troilus has refrained from battle that day. The scene ends with Troilus and Aeneas leaving the fortressed city of Troy to see what the clamor outside is about. Troilus therefore moves out from the interior world of domesticity and love to the exterior realm of violence and politics. The movement reverses the implied trajectory in his opening lines, where he declares that it is pointless to wage war “without the walls of Troy” (1.1. 2) when he is busy in the “cruel battle here within” (1.1.3). The reversal of position suggests that the exterior world will triumph over the inner realm at the end of the play.

As the first two scenes show, hyperbole is an important literary device in the play. Troilus’s praise of Cressida is exalted, such as when he states her skin is so soft that swan’s feathers appear callused in comparison. Troilus’s exaggerated admiration for Cressida speaks to the intensity of his youthful infatuation; however, it is followed in Scene 2 by Pandarus’s exaggerated praise of Troilus to a completely different effect. When Pandarus tells Cressida that Troilus is so brave that all other warriors are “asses, fools […] chaff and bran” (1.2.240-241) in comparison, his praise appears so false it undercuts the very idea of Troilus’s chivalry. The hyperbole is not inspired by romance; instead, it suggests that Pandarus needs to build up Troilus precisely because the young prince doesn’t have much to offer.

Like hyperbole, the play is also filled with similes, metaphors, alliteration, allusions, and other literary devices. For instance, Troilus uses several similes to describe his lovelorn state: He is “weaker than a woman’s tear / tamer than sleep / fonder than ignorance” (1.1.9-10). Similes and metaphors on a common theme are repeated throughout the play, building a certain imagery. An example of this is metaphors on disease and sickness, which amplify the idea that the society in the play is morally corrupt. Other comparisons and figurative language build the theme of women’s infidelity and fickleness (See: Symbols & Motifs). 

Apart from figures of speech, the play also uses various narrative and theatrical conventions to advance its story, like it does with the Prologue. In the second scene of the act, Cressida’s attendant Alexander tells her Priam and Hecuba are going to a tower so they can witness the vista of the battle. He goes on to describe the warriors the king and queen will see, thereby introducing warriors like Ajax to the audience. Later, in the same scene, Pandarus describes the passing Trojan warriors to Cressida, again for the benefit of the audience.

Parallels and mirror images constitute an important element of the play. Not only do characters mirror each other, but the structures of various acts are also similar (Act I and Act II), as are speeches and sequences. The parallelism often undercuts or reverses the tone of its predecessor, adding to the play’s pessimistic and anticlimactic tone, as in the case of the speeches of Troilus and Pandarus. Throughout Pandarus’s speech, Cressida wittily undermines his exaggerations, showing how foolish they are. Cressida’s seeming undermining of Troilus actually suggests she does not need false reasons to love him. She declares as much after Pandarus leaves, stating that she sees more in Troilus than the fake mirror of Pandarus’s praise can show. Thus, the scene briefly sets up Cressida as a fitting counterpart for the romantic hero Troilus.

However, Cressida’s closing lines introduce the play’s familiar note of ambiguity. Though Cressida’s heart desires Troilus, she cannot show him her feelings because she knows men value only what they do not possess. Once Troilus gains Cressida, he will begin to devalue her. Cressida’s appraisal of her relationship with Troilus paints her as an intelligent, pragmatic character and also illustrates the play’s recurrent motif of exchanges, transactions, and estimations of value. While this motif has little place in a typical love story, its persistence shows that Troilus and Cressida is not a tale of ideal love but of love defeated by the forces of war, politics, and trade. The motif of bargains and other mercantile imagery also constitutes an anachronism, since it belongs more in the play’s Elizabethan context than the classical context of its plot. For example, Troilus compares Cressida to far-off India, which he must travel to in a merchant ship. The image is from the colonizing enterprises of the 16th and 17th centuries, rather than the ancient story of the Trojan War.

The political realm makes an appearance in the third scene of the act, as does the motif of time. In the personal and domestic realm, time moves slowly, without the pressures of the clock; however, in war, time symbolizes death or a merchant awaiting his due. Agamemnon immediately reminds the Greek commanders that the war has lasted for seven years and must soon be decided. The definite number—seven—introduces a sense of urgency into the plot while hinting at The Pervasive Futility and Corruption of War.

Although Agamemnon is the nominal leader of the Greek factions, it is Ulysses who emerges the stronger character. Ulysses—or Odysseus of Homer’s Iliad—is presented in line with his popular depiction as a wise, shrewd general. As in this case, he delivers some of the play’s most detailed speeches on governance, ethics, and law. Ulysses’s description of an ideal organization is one, which like the heavens, “the planets, and this center / observe degree, priority, and place” (1.3.85-86). The center refers to the earth, since in Renaissance cosmology, the planets and the sun revolved around the earth. The importance given to degree, priority, and place reflects how significant hierarchy was considered for social harmony in Shakespeare’s time. Ulysses’s speech thus echoes concepts and ideals familiar to Shakespeare’s audience.

While Ulysses’s portrayal is in line with Homer’s epic, Achilles, the great hero, is shown to be indolent and lawless, deviating from Homer’s story, as Homer tends to emphasize more Achilles’s anger and sense of wounded pride. The treatment of Achilles’s character illustrates the play’s skeptical attitude towards heroism in war. Ulysses describes Achilles not just as haughty but as lazy and petty, engaged in indecorous pastimes such as mocking all the Greek commanders. The vocabulary of Ulysses’s speech undoes the notion of Achilles’s nobility: Achilles is described as egging on Patroclus to parody Agamemnon and Nestor, laughing at the act while “on his press’d bed lolling” (1.3.162). The image of Patroclus and Achilles lying in bed is repeated, introducing a note of lechery and lust in the proceedings. Ulysses also compares Patroclus to a useless actor, suggesting that all performances are meaningless, which ties into the theme of The Divided Self and Its Performance.