Troilus and Cressida, by William Shakespeare
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Troilus and Cressida, by William Shakespeare
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Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. It was described by Frederick S. Boas as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The play ends on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between Troilus and Cressida. Throughout the play, the tone lurches wildly between bawdy comedy and tragic gloom, and readers and theatre-goers have frequently found it difficult to understand how one is meant to respond to the characters. However, several characteristic elements of the play (the most notable being its constant questioning of intrinsic values such as hierarchy, honour and love) have often been viewed as distinctly "modern," as in the following remarks on the play by author and literary scholar Joyce Carol Oates:Troilus and Cressida, that most vexing and ambiguous of Shakespeare's plays, strikes the modern reader as a contemporary document—its investigation of numerous infidelities, its criticism of tragic pretensions, above all, its implicit debate between what is essential in human life and what is only existential are themes of the twentieth century. ... This is tragedy of a special sort—the "tragedy" the basis of which is the impossibility of conventional tragedy. (font: Wikipedia)
Troilus and Cressida, by William Shakespeare - Published on: 2015-10-17
- Released on: 2015-10-17
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Troilus and Cressida, by William Shakespeare From the Publisher Designed for school districts, educators, and students seeking to maximize performance on standardized tests, Webster’s paperbacks take advantage of the fact that classics are frequently assigned readings in English courses. By using a running thesaurus at the bottom of each page, this edition of Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare was edited for students who are actively building their vocabularies in anticipation of taking PSAT®, SAT®, AP® (Advanced Placement®), GRE®, LSAT®, GMAT® or similar examinations.
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About the Author William Shakespeare, also known as “Bard of Avon”, is regarded as one of the greatest writer in the English language and the finest dramatist of the world. He was a successful English poet, Playwright, and actor. He is often called England’s National Poet. His works have been translated into every major language of the world, and are performed the most as compared to any other playwright. His works, along with some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and few other verses, of which the authorship of some is unconfirmed. Shakespeare’s private life is much speculated about, as too few records of his private life have survived. The known works of Shakespeare were produced between 1589 and 1613. In the early phase as a playwright, Shakespeare mostly produced comedies and histories, and these works are considered as one of the best in these genres. Afterwards, he wrote tragedies until about 1608, which include Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, and Othello. These works are also one of the finest in English language, and literature. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The Prologue[Enter the Prologue, in armour]In Troy there lies the scene. From isles of GreeceThe princes orgulous, their high blood chafed,Have to the port of Athens sent their shipsFraught with the ministers and instrumentsOf cruel war: sixty and nine, that woreTheir crownets regal, from th'Athenian bayPut forth toward Phrygia, and their vow is madeTo ransack Troy, within whose strong immuresThe ravished Helen, Menelaus' queen,With wanton Paris sleeps, and that's the quarrel.To Tenedos they come,And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorgeTheir warlike fraughtage: now on Dardan plainsThe fresh and yet unbruisèd Greeks do pitchTheir brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,And Antenorides, with massy staplesAnd corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,Stir up the sons of Troy.Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come,A prologue armed, but not in confidenceOf author's pen or actor's voice, but suitedIn like conditions as our argument,To tell you, fair beholders, that our playLeaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,Beginning in the middle, starting thence awayTo what may be digested in a play.Like or find fault, do as your pleasures are:Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war. [Exit]Act 1 Scene 1 running scene 1Enter Pandarus and TroilusTROILUS Call here my varlet, I'll unarm again:Why should I war without the walls of TroyThat find such cruel battle here within?Each Trojan that is master of his heart,Let him to field: Troilus, alas, hath none.PANDARUS Will this gear ne'er be mended?TROILUS The Greeks are strong and skilful to their strength,Fierce to their skill and to their fierceness valiant,But I am weaker than a woman's tear,Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,Less valiant than the virgin in the night,And skilless as unpractised infancy.PANDARUS Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part, I'll not meddle nor make no further. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.TROILUS Have I not tarried?PANDARUS Ay, the grinding, but you must tarry the bolting.TROILUS Have I not tarried?PANDARUS Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leav'ning.TROILUS Still have I tarried.PANDARUS Ay, to the leavening, but here's yet in the word 'hereafter' the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.TROILUS Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,Doth lesser blench at suff'rance than I do.At Priam's royal table do I sit;And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts -So, traitor, when she comes? When is she thence?PANDARUS Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else.TROILUS I was about to tell thee - when my heart,As wedgèd with a sigh, would rive in twain,Lest Hector or my father should perceive me -I have, as when the sun doth light a-scorn,Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile:But sorrow, that is couched in seeming gladnessIs like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.PANDARUS An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's - well, go to - there were no more comparison between the women. But, for my part, she is my kinswoman: I would not, as they term it, praise her, but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, but-TROILUS O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus -When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drowned,Reply not in how many fathoms deepThey lie indrenched. I tell thee I am madIn Cressid's love. Thou answer'st she is fair,Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heartHer eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her handIn whose comparison all whites are inkWriting their own reproach, to whose soft seizureThe cygnet's down is harsh and spirit of senseHard 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 meThe knife that made it.PANDARUS I speak no more than truth.TROILUS Thou dost not speak so much.PANDARUS Faith, I'll not meddle in't. 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.TROILUS Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus?PANDARUS I have had my labour for my travail: ill-thought on of her and ill-thought on of you: gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour.TROILUS What, art thou angry, Pandarus? What, with me?PANDARUS Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a blackamoor: 'tis all one to me.TROILUS Say I she is not fair?PANDARUS I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father: let her to the Greeks, and so I'll tell her the next time I see her. For my part, I'll meddle nor make no more i'th'matter.TROILUS Pandarus-PANDARUS Not I.TROILUS Sweet Pandarus-PANDARUS Pray you speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. Exit PandarusSound alarumTROILUS Peace, you ungracious clamours, peace, rude sounds!Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fairWhen with your blood you daily paint her thus.I cannot fight upon this argument:It is too starved a subject for my sword.But Pandarus - O gods, how do you plague me!I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar,And he's as tetchy to be wooed to wooAs she is stubborn, chaste, against all suit.Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?Her bed is India: there she lies, a pearl.Between our Ilium and where she resides,Let it be called the wild and wand'ring flood,Ourself the merchant, and this sailing PandarOur doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark.Alarum. Enter AeneasAENEAS How now, Prince Troilus? Wherefore not afield?TROILUS Because not there: this woman's answer sorts,For womanish it is to be from thence.What news, Aeneas, from the field today?AENEAS That Paris is returnèd home and hurt.TROILUS By whom, Aeneas?AENEAS Troilus, by Menelaus.TROILUS Let Paris bleed, 'tis but a scar to scorn:Paris is gored with Menelaus' horn. AlarumAENEAS Hark, what good sport is out of town today!TROILUS Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may'.But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither?AENEAS In all swift haste.TROILUS Come, go we then together. Exeunt[Act 1 Scene 2] running scene 2Enter Cressida and her Man [Alexander]CRESSIDA Who were those went by?ALEXANDER Queen Hecuba and Helen.CRESSIDA And whither go they?ALEXANDER Up to the eastern tower,Whose height commands as subject all the vale,To see the battle. Hector, whose patienceIs as a virtue fixed, today was moved:He chides Andromache and struck his armourer,And, like as there were husbandry in war,Before the sun rose he was harnessed light,And to the field goes he, where every flowerDid as a prophet weep what it foresawIn Hector's wrath.CRESSIDA What was his cause of anger?ALEXANDER The noise goes, this: there is among the GreeksA lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector:They call him Ajax.CRESSIDA Good, and what of him?ALEXANDER They say he is a very man per se, and stands alone.CRESSIDA So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.ALEXANDER This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions: he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion. There is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: he hath the joints of everything, but everything so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblinded Argus, all eyes and no sight.CRESSIDA But how should this man, that makes me smile make Hector angry?ALEXANDER They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle and struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.Enter PandarusCRESSIDA Who comes here?ALEXANDER Madam, your uncle Pandarus.CRESSIDA Hector's a gallant man.ALEXANDER As may be in the world, lady.PANDARUS What's that? What's that?CRESSIDA Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.PANDARUS Good morrow, cousin Cressid. What do you talk of?- Good morrow, Alexander.- How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?CRESSIDA This morning, uncle.PANDARUS What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector armed and gone ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?CRESSIDA Hector was gone, but Helen was not up.PANDARUS E'en so; Hector was stirring early.CRESSIDA That were we talking of, and of his anger.PANDARUS Was he angry?CRESSIDA So he says here.PANDARUS True, he was so; I know the cause too: he'll lay about him today, I can tell them that, and there's Troilus will not come far behind him: let them take heed of Troilus, I can tell them that too.CRESSIDA What, is he angry too?PANDARUS Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.CRESSIDA O Jupiter, there's no comparison.PANDARUS What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man if you see him?CRESSIDA Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him.PANDARUS Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.CRESSIDA Then you say as I say, for I am sure he is not Hector.PANDARUS No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees.CRESSIDA 'Tis just to each of them: he is himself.PANDARUS Himself? Alas, poor Troilus, I would he were.CRESSIDA So he is.PANDARUS Condition, I had gone barefoot to India.CRESSIDA He is not Hector.PANDARUS Himself? No, he's not himself: would a were himself! Well, the gods are above, time must friend or end. Well, Troilus, well. I would my heart were in her body. No, Hector is not a better man than Troilus.CRESSIDA Excuse me.PANDARUS He is elder.CRESSIDA Pardon me, pardon me.PANDARUS Th'other's not come to't; you shall tell me another tale, when th'other's come to't. Hector shall not have his wit this year.CRESSIDA He shall not need it if he have his own.PANDARUS Nor his qualities.CRESSIDA No matter.PANDARUS Nor his beauty.CRESSIDA 'Twould not become him: his own's better.PANDARUS You have no judgement, niece; Helen herself swore th'other day that Troilus for a brown favour - for so 'tis, I must confess - not brown neither-CRESSIDA No, but brown.PANDARUS 'Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.CRESSIDA To say the truth, true and not true.PANDARUS She praised his complexion above Paris.CRESSIDA Why, Paris hath colour enough.PANDARUS So he has.CRESSIDA Then Troilus should have too much: if she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his: he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose.PANDARUS I swear to you, I think Helen loves him better than Paris.CRESSIDA Then she's a merry Greek indeed.PANDARUS Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th'other day into the compassed window - and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin-CRESSIDA Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total.PANDARUS Why, he is very young, and yet will he within three pound lift as much as his brother Hector.CRESSIDA Is he so young a man and so old a lifter?PANDARUS But to prove to you that Helen loves him, she came and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin-CRESSIDA Juno have mercy! How came it cloven?PANDARUS Why, you know 'tis dimpled. I think his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia.CRESSIDA O, he smiles valiantly.PANDARUS Does he not?CRESSIDA O yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn.PANDARUS Why, go to, then. But to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus-CRESSIDA Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll prove it so.PANDARUS Troilus? Why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg.CRESSIDA If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens i'th'shell.PANDARUS I cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his chin. Indeed, she has a marvellous white hand, I must needs confess-CRESSIDA Without the rack.PANDARUS And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.CRESSIDA Alas, poor chin. Many a wart is richer.PANDARUS But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laughed that her eyes ran o'er.CRESSIDA With millstones.PANDARUS And Cassandra laughed.CRESSIDA But there was more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes: did her eyes run o'er too?PANDARUS And Hector laughed.CRESSIDA At what was all this laughing?PANDARUS Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus' chin.CRESSIDA An't had been a green hair, I should have laughed too.PANDARUS They laughed not so much at the hair as at his pretty answer.CRESSIDA What was his answer?PANDARUS Quoth she, 'Here's but two and fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white.'CRESSIDA This is her question.PANDARUS That's true, make no question of that. 'Two and fifty hairs,' quoth he, 'and one white: that white hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons.' 'Jupiter!' quoth she, 'Which of these hairs is Paris, my husband?' 'The forked one,' quoth he, 'pluck't out, and give it him.' But there was such laughing, and Helen so blushed, and Paris so chafed, and all the rest so laughed, that it passed.CRESSIDA So let it now, for it has been a great while going by.PANDARUS Well, cousin. I told you a thing yesterday: think on't.CRESSIDA So I do.
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36 of 36 people found the following review helpful. Reviews don't necessarily apply to the edition you are looking at By Wanda B. Red Amazon seems to be including all the reviews of different editions and translations of Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" on the same page. If you read the reviews here you will be very confused. Some refer to an original language edition (either the one made by R. A. Shoaf or Stephen Barney's Norton Critical edition), and some refer to a translation, at least one to the translation done by Nevill Coghill. The reader needs to pay careful attention to what edition is actually on the screen when making a selection.If you want to read the original text, I would recommend Stephen Barney's edition. Barney is the editor who made the critical edition for the Riverside Chaucer, and his Norton Critical edition includes ten excellent critical essays in addition to Chaucer's poem, Giovanni Boccaccio's "Il Filostrato" (Chaucer's source), and Robert Henryson's "Testament of Crisseid." Shoaf's edition is also good, but twice as expensive, and it does not have as much contextual material. Coghill is a fine translator of Chaucer, and for the reader who does not want to tackle the Middle English he will provide an adequate experience. But beware: His smooth couplets sound more like Alexander Pope than the vigorous medieval writer he is translating.
32 of 36 people found the following review helpful. A marvelous translation and an excellent place to start. By tepi CHAUCER : TROILUS AND CRISEYDE. Translated into Modern English by Nevill Coghill. 332 pp. New York : Viking Press, 1995 (Reissue). ISBN: 0140442391 (pbk.)Nevill Coghill's brilliant modern English translation of Chaucer's 'The Canterbury Tales' has always been a bestseller and it's easy to understand why. Chaucer was an intensely human writer and a great comic artist, but besides the ribaldry and sheer good fun of 'The Canterbury Tales,' we also know he was capable of other things. His range was wide, and the striking thing about Coghill's translations are how amazingly faithful they are to the spirit of the originals - at times bawdy and hilariously funny, at other times more serious and moving when Chaucer shifts to a more poignant mode as in 'Troilus and Criseyde.'But despite the brilliance of Coghill's translations, and despite the fact that they remain the best possible introduction to Chaucer for those who don't know Middle English, those who restrict themselves to Coghill are going to miss a lot - such readers are certainly going to get the stories, but they're going to lose much of the beauty those stories have in the original language. The difference is as great as that between a black-and-white movie and technicolor.Chaucer's Middle English _looks_ difficult to many, and I think I know why. It _looks_ difficult because that in fact is what people are doing, they are _looking_ at it, they are reading silently and trying to take it in through the eye. This is a recipe for instant frustration and failure. But fortunately there is a quick and easy remedy.So much of Chaucer's power is in the sheer music of his lines, and in their energy and thrust. He was writing when English was at its most masculine and vigorous. And his writings were intended, as was the common practice in the Middle Ages when silent reading was considered a freakish phenomenon, to be read aloud. Those new to Chaucer would therefore be well advised, after reading and enjoying Nevill Coghill's renderings, to learn how to read Middle English _aloud_ as soon as possible by listening to one of the many excellent recordings.Coghill certainly captures the spirit of Chaucer, but modern English cannot really convey the full flavor and intensity of the original. Learn how to roll a few of Chaucer's Middle English lines around on your tongue and you'll soon hear what I mean. You'll also find that it isn't nearly so difficult as it _looks_, and your pleasure in Chaucer will be magnified enormously.
32 of 38 people found the following review helpful. The most unsung, but perhaps the most modern, of Shakespeare By darragh o'donoghue One of his lesser known works, Shakespeare's Trojan play is also one of his most intriguing. Not quite a burlesque, 'Troilus and Cressida''s lurches in tone, from farce to historical drama to romance to tragedy, and its blurring of these modes, explains why generations of critics and audiences have found it so unsatisfying, and why today it can seem so modern. Its disenchanted tone, its interest in the baser human instincts underlying (classical) heroism look forward to such 20th century works as Giraudoux's 'The Trojan War Will Not Take Place' or Terry Jones' 'Chaucer's Knight'; the aristocratic ideals of Love and War, inextricably linked in this play, are debased by the merchant-class language of exchange, trade, food, possesion - the passionate affair at its centre is organised by the man who gave his name to pimps, Pandarus, and is more concerned with immediate sexual gratification than anything transcendental. The Siege of Troy sequences are full of the elaborately formal rhetoric we expect from Shakespeare's history plays, but well-wrought diplomacy masks ignoble trickery; the great heroes Ajax and Achilles are petulant egotists, the latter preferring the company of his catamite to combat; the actual war sequences, when they finally come, are a breathless farce of exits and entrances. There are a lot of words in this play, but very few deeds.Paris, Prince of Troy, has abducted Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta. Led by the latter's brother Agamemnon, and his Machiavellian advisors Ulysses and Nestor, the Greeks besiege Troy, demanding the return of Helen. However, Achilles' dissatisfaction at the generals' endless politicking has spread discontent in the ranks. Within Troy, war takes a distinct second place to matters of the heart. While Paris wallows in luxury with his prize, his youngest brother Troilus uses Pandarus as a go-between to arrange a night of love with his niece, Cressida. When one of the Trojan leaders is taken prisoner by the Greeks, the ransom price is Cressida.There is only one character in 'Troilus' who can be said to be at all noble and not self-interested, the eldest Trojan prince Hector, who, despite his odd interpreation of the quality 'honour', detests a meaningless war, and tries to spare as many of his enemies' lives as he can. He is clearly an anachronism, however, and his ignoble slaughter at the hands of a brutal gang suggests what price chivalry. Perhaps the most recognisable character is Thirsitis, the most savagely cynical of his great Fools. Imagine Falstaff without the redeeming lovability - he divests heroes and events of their false values, satirises motivations, abuses his dim-witted 'betters' and tries to preserve his life at any cost. Written in between 'Hamlet' and 'All's Well That Ends Well', 'Troilus' bears all the marks of Shakespeare's mid-period: the contrapuntal structure, the dense figures, the audacious neologisms, and the intitially deferred, accelerated action. If some of the diplomacy scenes are too efective in their parodic pastiche of classical rhetoric, and slow things down, Act 5 is an amazing dramatic rush, crowning the play's disenchantment with love (with an extraordinarily creepy three-way spaying of an infidelity) and war.The New Penguin Shakespeare is the most accessible and user-friendly edition for students and the general reader (although it does need updating). Unlike the Oxford or Arden series, which offer unwieldy introductions (yawning with irrelevant conjecture about dates and sources) and unusable notes (clotted with tedious pedantry more concerned with fighting previous commentators than elucidating Shakespeare), the Penguin's format offers a clear Introduction dealing with the play and its contexts, an appendix 'An Account of the Text', and functional endnotes that gloss unfamiliar words and difficult passages. The Introduction is untainted by fashions in Critical Theory, but is particularly good at explaining the role of Time ('When time is old and hath forgot itself...And blind oblivion swallowed cities up'), the shifting structure, the multiple viewpoints in presenting characters, and Shakespeare's use of different literary and linguistic registers.
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