Troilus and Cressida

The play contains many instances of infidelity, whether it be Helen’s infidelity to Menelaus, Calchas’s infidelity to Troy, or Cressida’s betrayal of Troilus. Infidelity is both a motif, illustrating the theme of Disillusionment With Romantic and Heroic Ideals, and a symbol of spiritual and social malaise. All the betrayals in the text symbolize the corruption of values, illustrating a universe in which values like loyalty, obedience, and chastity have become meaningless. 

Ulysses hints at the importance of loyalty in upholding social order when he says, “When that the general is not like the hive / To whom the foragers shall all repair / What honey is expected?” (1.3.84-86). When the community does not behave like a hive, the bees answering to one general, to expect honey is foolish. Since Elizabethan society was highly hierarchical, this analogy can be extended to every field of life. Thus, when women do not answer to their generals—husbands and beloveds—and heroes do not respond to duty, chaos ensues. Order is only achieved when everyone is loyal to a superior person or ideal.

While the infidelity of women symbolizes the larger infidelity gripping society, it also represents the gender bias in the text. Both in classical literature and Shakespeare’s time, women were believed to be irrational, fickle, and prone to disloyalty. So prevalent was this notion that the stock figure of the cuckold—the cheated husband—was a huge source of laughs in much of Elizabethan and Jacobean literature. In Troilus and Cressida as well, Menelaus is called a horned cuckold, horns being the popular symbol of the cuckold. Infidelity in women was considered natural, which is why they needed to be controlled and watched by fathers and husbands. When Cressida asks Troilus if he will be faithful to her after they part, Troilus is dumbfounded by her question. As a man and a noble warrior, his constancy is a given—it is Cressida who is prone to stray.

Images of exchange, trade, and deals dominate the play, reflecting the mercantile concerns of Shakespeare’s time. It was a time when trade was booming, venture shipping was on the rise, and the empire was spreading across the seas. The mercantile imagery constitutes an anachronism, since it belongs more to Shakespeare’s era than the play’s classical plot. However, the narrative deliberately uses the anachronistic imagery to undercut the romantic and heroic strains of its epic story. Bargains, deals, and exchanges serve as a symbol of the materialistic, self-centered ethos of the play’s universe. 

Troilus and Cressida’s love is presented as a deal from the beginning of the play, with Troilus comparing Cressida’s bed to India, and she the rare jewel at the center of the bed. To get to this bed, Troilus must be an adventurous merchant sailor, braving high seas. The references to the bed and the merchant enterprise immediately make Troilus’s love for Cressida seem transactional in nature, more about conquering her sexually and financially than genuine companionship.

Apart from bargains, deals, and ventures, the play also uses metaphors about determining market value to spell out its themes. This shows that even humans are commodities, with their worth determined by what they bring to the “market.” Cressida understands the world she lives in, which is why she acts coy before Troilus. She knows her chastity—the quality of being “unspoiled” through lack of sexual experience—adds to her market worth. 

The mercantile imagery is pervasive throughout the text, as evident in the scene in which Diomedes insults Helen. Paris deems Diomedes is only doing this because, like a chapman or a trader, he must “Dispraise the thing that [he] desire[s] to buy” (4.1.82), or pretend to scoff at an object he desires in hope of getting a bargain. However, since Paris does not want to sell Helen at all, he will not defend her. Helen is reduced to an object in this metaphor, with two men haggling over her. Further, Helen is deemed valuable only because she is desirable to men. Thus, not only are people commodities in the play, their market value is also constantly being estimated and adjusted.

When Troilus and Cressida part, they give each other tokens of their mutual devotion. Cressida gives Troilus a glove, while he gifts her a sleeve. The exchange of the tokens is a motif borrowed from medieval chivalry, where ladies often gave departing knights a scarf or another token to wear as a “favor,” a symbol of the lady’s good wishes and patronage. 

However, in the play, this romantic medieval symbolism is turned into a metaphor for Cressida’s infidelity and Troilus’s disillusionment. Hardly any time has elapsed since her departure from Troy when Cressida gives Troilus’s sleeve to Diomedes. She could have chosen any other token for the Greek warrior, but the choice of the sleeve shows Cressida’s denigration of Troilus’s love. Not only is she betraying Troilus, she is betraying the very idea of a pure, romantic love. This shows the play’s plot has travelled far from its medieval source material. The era of noble knights and their muses is over.