Cressida
Encyclopedia
Cressida is a character who appears in many Medieval
and Renaissance
retellings of the story of the Trojan War
. She is a Trojan woman, the daughter of Calchas
a priestly defector to the Greeks. She falls in love with Troilus
the youngest son of King Priam
, and pledges everlasting love, but when she is sent to the Greeks as part of a hostage exchange, she forms a liaison with the Greek warrior Diomedes
.
The character's name is derived from that of Chryseis
, a character who appears in the Iliad
but has no connection with Troilus, Diomedes or Calchas. Indeed, the story of Troilus and Cressida does not appear in any Greek legends but was invented by the twelfth century French poet Benoît de Sainte-Maure
in the Roman de Troie. The woman in the love triangle
is here called not Cressida but Briseida, a name derived from that of Briseis
, a different character in the Iliad, who again is neither related to Calchas nor involved in any love affairs with Troilus or Diomedes. Initially, after the Roman appeared, other authors who refer to the story, for example, Azalais d'Altier
in her poem Tanz salutz e tantas amors and Guido delle Colonne
in his Historia destructionis Troiae
, continue to use names derived from that of Briseis.
It is Boccaccio who makes the decisive shift in the character's name in Il Filostrato
. This poem is the first work dedicated to telling the story of the love triangle rather than to the larger tale of the Trojan War. Geoffrey Chaucer
's Troilus and Criseyde
is an expanded version of the story based on Boccaccio. Several other British authors then took up the tale, for example Robert Henryson
in his The Testament of Cresseid
and William Shakespeare
in his Troilus and Cressida
(c. 1603).
Cressida has most often been depicted by writers as "false Cressida", a paragon of female inconstancy. As soon as she has betrayed Troilus, she has fulfilled her purpose and the men who have written about her do not mention her again. Such is the case in Benoît, Guido, Boccaccio, Chaucer and Shakespeare. Chaucer's poem, however, at least portrays a more sympathetic Criseyde showing a self-conscious awareness of her literary status: "Alas, of me until the world's end shall be wrote no good song". Henryson's treatment is unusual in that he looks at events after the end of the traditional tale. His poem takes up the repentant Cresseid's story after she has developed leprosy and been abandoned by Diomedes. Christa Wolf
provides another degraded future for the character in Cassandra
by once more naming her Briseis and including the Homeric story of her slavery to Achilles
and Agamemnon
. Jack Lindsay
's novel Cressida's first lover : a tale of ancient Greece explores another area untouched in standard narratives, some of her earlier life.
Some authors have attempted to exonerate the character by having her choose Troilus over Diomedes. Such is the case in John Dryden
's rewriting of Shakespeare in an attempt at that heap of Rubbish, under which many excellent thoughts lay bury'd." and in William Walton
and Christopher Hassall
's opera
. In both of these cases, Cressida's being true to Troilus is associated with her death as part of the concluding tragic events.
The character of Cressida has also appeared in more modern drama. A 1965 storyline of the time travel-based British science fiction television series Doctor Who
("The Myth Makers
" by Donald Cotton
) diverts substantially from the original literature. In the story, Vicki
, a teenaged travelling companion of the Doctor
played by Maureen O'Brien
, meets Priam
, King of Troy
who, disliking her name, dubs her Cressida. During the course of the story Vicki/Cressida falls in love with Priam's son, Troilus, and after the fall of Troy elects to stay with Troilus and rebuild the city. The story inverts the traditional fates of Troilus and Cressida, a change made to facilitate the departure of the Vicki character (and actress O'Brien) from the series.
, we first hear of Cressida in Act 1 Scene 1. Pandarus
and Troilus are discussing how the latter's unspoken love for the former's niece, Cressida, is preventing him from performing on the battlefield. She first appears in person in the following scene, speaking to her manservant before Pandarus enters. They commence into witty banter while a parade of Trojan soldiers heads past. When Troilus walks by Pandarus tries to convince Cressida of his merit, but she teases him, saying she has heard Achilles
, a Grecian warrior, is far more impressive. Once Pandarus exits Cressida admits in a soliloquy
that she does in fact love Troilus, but is worried about publicising it. In her own words:
Yet I hold off. Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.
That she beloved knows nought that knows not this:
Men prize the thing ungained more than it is:
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue.
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:
'Achievement is command; ungained, beseech.'
That though my heart's contents firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear. (lines 225-234)
She next appears in Act 3 Scene 2, when Pandarus leads her on stage wearing a veil to meet with Troilus. Pandarus then heads back 'inside' and the two are left alone. Cressida struggles to practise her maxim
as planned while Troilus professes his love for her. When Pandarus re-enters she eventually admits her own reciprocal love of Troilus. In a confused speech she battles with her own fate as a woman, even speaking in a collective woman's voice, revealing a greater intelligence than the male characters give her credit for:
I love you now, but till now,not so much
But I might master it; in faith, I lie:
My thoughts were like unbridled children grown
Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!
Why have I blabbed? Who shall be true to us,
When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
But, though I loved you well, I wooed you not,
And yet, good faith, I wished myself a man,
Or that we women had men's privilege
Of speaking first. (lines 92-101)
Cressida becomes increasingly affected by her own qualities, saying 'I show more craft than love' (line 124). She begs to be allowed to leave, but Troilus and Pandarus want her to stay, so that they can marry to immediate effect. She seems to prophesise her own failings, repeating the word 'false' seven times before Pandarus 'seals' the match. In Act 4 Scene 2 we see the couple on the morning after their first night together. They are euphoric, but Cressida does not want Troilus to leave her, showing an awareness of her own vulnerability in that moment. On line 20, she says 'you men will never tarry' as he begins to contemplate leaving. Pandarus enters and cracks some jokes about how she had now lost her innocence, and Cressida is flustered. Once Troilus and Cressida are dressed, Aeneas visits in a panic to say that for the return of one of Troy's men from the Greeks, Antenor, they must trade Cressida over to Diomedes, a Greek general. Cressida becomes an object to trade, and Troilus does nothing to prevent the sad event, though he is miserable for it. In Act 4 Scene 4 Cressida is informed of the plans to trade her to the Greeks. Troilus gives her his sleeve as a love token and she gives him a glove. Their relationship becomes an inversion of Paris and Helen's. Diomedes enters and Cressida is handed over.
In the following scene we again see Cressida in a less vulnerable state. Although she is now being led through the Greek encampment by Diomedes, surrounded by men, she engages with the men, Ulysses in particular, with defensive banter. Ulysses predicts her behaviour using coarse phrases such as 'sluttish spoils'. Act 5 Scene 2 is the most poignant scene containing Cressida, and the most memorable. Troilus has crept into the camp and is accompanied by Ulysses, and they are watch the scene unfolding between Diomedes and Cressida unnoticed. Thersites is also present and unseen, the clown of dark humour making distasteful comments exaggerating the sexual inference of what he sees. Cressida flirts with Diomedes, yet is occasionally struck by guilt. She appears to lust after him, even giving him Troilus's sleeve as a love token, though quickly tries to retrieve it from him in a struggle, offering her own body in trade. Diomedes insists he will have both. He exits, having planned a return visit. Troilus is mad with jealousy and anger throughout the scene, but she never realises he is close by. Her final lines of the play are:
Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee,
But with my heart the other eye doth see.
Ah, poor our sex! This fault in us I find,
The error of our eye doth direct our mind:
What error leads must err. O, then conclude
Minds swayed by eyes are full of turpitude. (122-127)
Later, we are told of things that concern her: for example, the letter Troilus receives which he tears up, and Troilus' horse which Diomedes sends to her as a prize after knocking him out of the saddle in battle.
has little performance history prior to the 20th Century. Cressida's character is as isolated from framing as the rest of the story - we never know how her life ends, there is no 'ever after' for her, and even her beginning is mysterious to us. She appears a witty young girl, only to become a serious, thoughtful, and thought-provoking woman in moments of reflection. Carol Rutter explores the reasons why Cressida is so fascinating. She writes:
[...] the challenge Shakespeare constructs for this play is to put before us a Cressida, who, like the fair (but dark) lady of the sonnets is, in Eve Sedgwick’s memorable term, ‘oxymoron militant’, a genuine contradiction.
Rutter has much to say on Cressida's self-awareness. Firstly, that Cressida is unique, that she is something entirely, radically new, the woman who behaves like a man, who betrays the man, secondly, that:
Two voices seem to be speaking [...] Where has Cressida learnt this ‘instruction’? [...] the speech is neurotic, pragmatic, anti-romantic – yet it’s form is a sonnet [...] it discloses strategic schizophrenia [...] by this agenda, to win at love, a woman must play false, act double. She must separate instinct from sexual performance [...]
Juliet Stevenson
commented in Rutter's book Clamorous Voices that such roles inspire an actor to:
[...] react against the way tradition and prejudice have stigmatised them – Cressida the whore [...] every time they’re judged you feel protective. Perhaps too protective. So you might end up playing a Cressida who is above reproach.
The main question as regards Shakespeare's Cressida is centralised around whether she is simply a 'whore', or if she is more complex, and worth further attention due to her obvious intelligence and duality.
Medieval literature
Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages . The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works...
and Renaissance
Renaissance literature
Renaissance Literature refers to the period in European literature that began in Italy during the 14th century and spread around Europe through the 17th century...
retellings of the story of the Trojan War
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
. She is a Trojan woman, the daughter of Calchas
Calchas
In Greek mythology, Calchas , son of Thestor, was an Argive seer, with a gift for interpreting the flight of birds that he received of Apollo: "as an augur, Calchas had no rival in the camp"...
a priestly defector to the Greeks. She falls in love with Troilus
Troilus
Troilus is a legendary character associated with the story of the Trojan War...
the youngest son of King Priam
Priam
Priam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian compound Priimuua, which means "exceptionally courageous".- Marriage and issue :...
, and pledges everlasting love, but when she is sent to the Greeks as part of a hostage exchange, she forms a liaison with the Greek warrior Diomedes
Diomedes
Diomedes or Diomed is a hero in Greek mythology, known for his participation in the Trojan War.He was born to Tydeus and Deipyle and later became King of Argos, succeeding his maternal grandfather, Adrastus. In Homer's Iliad Diomedes is regarded alongside Ajax as one of the best warriors of all...
.
The character's name is derived from that of Chryseis
Chryseis
In Greek mythology, Chryseis was a Trojan woman, the daughter of Chryses. Chryseis, her apparent name in the Iliad, means simply "Chryses' daughter"; later writers give her real name as Astynome ....
, a character who appears in the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
but has no connection with Troilus, Diomedes or Calchas. Indeed, the story of Troilus and Cressida does not appear in any Greek legends but was invented by the twelfth century French poet Benoît de Sainte-Maure
Benoît de Sainte-Maure
Benoît de Sainte-Maure was a 12th century French poet, most probably from Sainte-Maure de Touraine near Tours, France. The Plantagenets' administrative center was located in Chinon - west of Tours....
in the Roman de Troie. The woman in the love triangle
Love triangle
A love triangle is usually a romantic relationship involving three people. While it can refer to two people independently romantically linked with a third, it usually implies that each of the three people has some kind of relationship to the other two...
is here called not Cressida but Briseida, a name derived from that of Briseis
Briseis
Brisēís was a mythical queen in Asia Minor at the time of the Trojan War. Her character lies at the center of a dispute between Achilles and Agamemnon that drives the plot of Homer's Iliad.-Story:...
, a different character in the Iliad, who again is neither related to Calchas nor involved in any love affairs with Troilus or Diomedes. Initially, after the Roman appeared, other authors who refer to the story, for example, Azalais d'Altier
Azalais d'Altier
Azalais or Azalaïs d'Altier was an early-13th-century trobairitz. She was from Altier in the Gévaudan. She has sometimes been confused with Almucs de Castelnau....
in her poem Tanz salutz e tantas amors and Guido delle Colonne
Guido delle Colonne
Guido delle Colonne was an early 13th century Sicilian writer, living at Messina, who wrote in Latin...
in his Historia destructionis Troiae
Historia destructionis Troiae
Historia destructionis Troiae or Historia Troiana is a Latin prose narrative written by Guido delle Colonne, a Sicilian author, in the early 13th century. Its main source was the Old French verse romance by Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Roman de Troie...
, continue to use names derived from that of Briseis.
It is Boccaccio who makes the decisive shift in the character's name in Il Filostrato
Il Filostrato
Il Filostrato is a poem by the Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio, and the inspiration for Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and, through Chaucer, the Shakespeare play Troilus and Cressida...
. This poem is the first work dedicated to telling the story of the love triangle rather than to the larger tale of the Trojan War. Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
's Troilus and Criseyde
Troilus and Criseyde
Troilus and Criseyde is a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer which re-tells in Middle English the tragic story of the lovers Troilus and Criseyde set against a backdrop of war in the Siege of Troy. It was composed using rime royale and probably completed during the mid 1380s. Many Chaucer scholars regard it...
is an expanded version of the story based on Boccaccio. Several other British authors then took up the tale, for example Robert Henryson
Robert Henryson
Robert Henryson was a poet who flourished in Scotland in the period c. 1460–1500. Counted among the Scots makars, he lived in the royal burgh of Dunfermline and is a distinctive voice in the Northern Renaissance at a time when the culture was on a cusp between medieval and renaissance sensibilities...
in his The Testament of Cresseid
The Testament of Cresseid
The Testament of Cresseid is a narrative poem written by the Scottish makar Robert Henryson. It imagines a tragic fate for Cressida in the medieval story of Troilus and Criseyde which was left untold in Geoffrey Chaucer's version. The poem also features graphically-realised portraits of the...
and William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
in his Troilus and Cressida
Troilus and Cressida
Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. It was also 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...
(c. 1603).
Cressida has most often been depicted by writers as "false Cressida", a paragon of female inconstancy. As soon as she has betrayed Troilus, she has fulfilled her purpose and the men who have written about her do not mention her again. Such is the case in Benoît, Guido, Boccaccio, Chaucer and Shakespeare. Chaucer's poem, however, at least portrays a more sympathetic Criseyde showing a self-conscious awareness of her literary status: "Alas, of me until the world's end shall be wrote no good song". Henryson's treatment is unusual in that he looks at events after the end of the traditional tale. His poem takes up the repentant Cresseid's story after she has developed leprosy and been abandoned by Diomedes. Christa Wolf
Christa Wolf
Christa Wolf was a German literary critic, novelist, and essayist. She is one of the best-known writers to have emerged from the former East Germany.-Biography:...
provides another degraded future for the character in Cassandra
Cassandra (novel)
Cassandra was written by East German author Christa Wolf in 1984. It has since been translated into a number of languages...
by once more naming her Briseis and including the Homeric story of her slavery to Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....
and Agamemnon
Agamemnon
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area...
. Jack Lindsay
Jack Lindsay
Robert Leeson Jack Lindsay was an Australian-born writer, who from 1926 lived in the United Kingdom, initially in Essex. He was born in Melbourne, but spent his formative years in Brisbane...
's novel Cressida's first lover : a tale of ancient Greece explores another area untouched in standard narratives, some of her earlier life.
Some authors have attempted to exonerate the character by having her choose Troilus over Diomedes. Such is the case in John Dryden
John Dryden
John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.Walter Scott called him "Glorious John." He was made Poet...
's rewriting of Shakespeare in an attempt at that heap of Rubbish, under which many excellent thoughts lay bury'd." and in William Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
and Christopher Hassall
Christopher Hassall
Christopher Vernon Hassall was an English actor, dramatist, librettist, lyricist and poet, who found his greatest fame in a memorable musical partnership with the actor and composer Ivor Novello after working together in the same touring company...
's opera
Troilus and Cressida (opera)
Troilus and Cressida is the first of the two operas by William Walton. The libretto was by Christopher Hassall, his own first opera libretto, based on Chaucer's poem Troilus and Criseyde...
. In both of these cases, Cressida's being true to Troilus is associated with her death as part of the concluding tragic events.
The character of Cressida has also appeared in more modern drama. A 1965 storyline of the time travel-based British science fiction television series Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
("The Myth Makers
The Myth Makers
The Myth Makers is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 16 October to 6 November 1965. The story is set in Homeric Troy, based on Iliad by Homer...
" by Donald Cotton
Donald Cotton
Donald Cotton was a writer for radio and television during the black and white era. He also wrote numerous musical revues for the stage...
) diverts substantially from the original literature. In the story, Vicki
Vicki
Vicki is a fictional character played by Maureen O'Brien in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. An orphan from the 25th century, she was a companion of the First Doctor and a regular in the programme in Seasons 2 and 3 in 1965...
, a teenaged travelling companion of the Doctor
Doctor (Doctor Who)
The Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and has also featured in two cinema feature films, a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....
played by Maureen O'Brien
Maureen O'Brien
Maureen O'Brien is an English actress of Irish descent and author best known for playing the role of Vicki in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who, although she has appeared in many other television programmes as well.She played the part of Vicki in 38 episodes of Doctor Who from 2...
, meets Priam
Priam
Priam was the king of Troy during the Trojan War and youngest son of Laomedon. Modern scholars derive his name from the Luwian compound Priimuua, which means "exceptionally courageous".- Marriage and issue :...
, King of Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
who, disliking her name, dubs her Cressida. During the course of the story Vicki/Cressida falls in love with Priam's son, Troilus, and after the fall of Troy elects to stay with Troilus and rebuild the city. The story inverts the traditional fates of Troilus and Cressida, a change made to facilitate the departure of the Vicki character (and actress O'Brien) from the series.
Shakespeare
In Shakespeare's Troilus and CressidaTroilus and Cressida
Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. It was also 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...
, we first hear of Cressida in Act 1 Scene 1. Pandarus
Pandarus
Pandarus is a Trojan aristocrat who appears in stories about the Trojan War. In Homer's Iliad he is portrayed as an energetic and impetuous warrior, but in medieval literature he becomes a witty and licentious figure who facilitates the affair between Troilus and Cressida...
and Troilus are discussing how the latter's unspoken love for the former's niece, Cressida, is preventing him from performing on the battlefield. She first appears in person in the following scene, speaking to her manservant before Pandarus enters. They commence into witty banter while a parade of Trojan soldiers heads past. When Troilus walks by Pandarus tries to convince Cressida of his merit, but she teases him, saying she has heard Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....
, a Grecian warrior, is far more impressive. Once Pandarus exits Cressida admits in a soliloquy
Soliloquy
A soliloquy is a device often used in drama whereby a character relates his or her thoughts and feelings to him/herself and to the audience without addressing any of the other characters, and is delivered often when they are alone or think they are alone. Soliloquy is distinct from monologue and...
that she does in fact love Troilus, but is worried about publicising it. In her own words:
Yet I hold off. Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.
That she beloved knows nought that knows not this:
Men prize the thing ungained more than it is:
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue.
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:
'Achievement is command; ungained, beseech.'
That though my heart's contents firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear. (lines 225-234)
She next appears in Act 3 Scene 2, when Pandarus leads her on stage wearing a veil to meet with Troilus. Pandarus then heads back 'inside' and the two are left alone. Cressida struggles to practise her maxim
Maxim (philosophy)
A maxim is a ground rule or subjective principle of action; in that sense, a maxim is a thought that can motivate individuals.- Deontological ethics :...
as planned while Troilus professes his love for her. When Pandarus re-enters she eventually admits her own reciprocal love of Troilus. In a confused speech she battles with her own fate as a woman, even speaking in a collective woman's voice, revealing a greater intelligence than the male characters give her credit for:
I love you now, but till now,not so much
But I might master it; in faith, I lie:
My thoughts were like unbridled children grown
Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!
Why have I blabbed? Who shall be true to us,
When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
But, though I loved you well, I wooed you not,
And yet, good faith, I wished myself a man,
Or that we women had men's privilege
Of speaking first. (lines 92-101)
Cressida becomes increasingly affected by her own qualities, saying 'I show more craft than love' (line 124). She begs to be allowed to leave, but Troilus and Pandarus want her to stay, so that they can marry to immediate effect. She seems to prophesise her own failings, repeating the word 'false' seven times before Pandarus 'seals' the match. In Act 4 Scene 2 we see the couple on the morning after their first night together. They are euphoric, but Cressida does not want Troilus to leave her, showing an awareness of her own vulnerability in that moment. On line 20, she says 'you men will never tarry' as he begins to contemplate leaving. Pandarus enters and cracks some jokes about how she had now lost her innocence, and Cressida is flustered. Once Troilus and Cressida are dressed, Aeneas visits in a panic to say that for the return of one of Troy's men from the Greeks, Antenor, they must trade Cressida over to Diomedes, a Greek general. Cressida becomes an object to trade, and Troilus does nothing to prevent the sad event, though he is miserable for it. In Act 4 Scene 4 Cressida is informed of the plans to trade her to the Greeks. Troilus gives her his sleeve as a love token and she gives him a glove. Their relationship becomes an inversion of Paris and Helen's. Diomedes enters and Cressida is handed over.
In the following scene we again see Cressida in a less vulnerable state. Although she is now being led through the Greek encampment by Diomedes, surrounded by men, she engages with the men, Ulysses in particular, with defensive banter. Ulysses predicts her behaviour using coarse phrases such as 'sluttish spoils'. Act 5 Scene 2 is the most poignant scene containing Cressida, and the most memorable. Troilus has crept into the camp and is accompanied by Ulysses, and they are watch the scene unfolding between Diomedes and Cressida unnoticed. Thersites is also present and unseen, the clown of dark humour making distasteful comments exaggerating the sexual inference of what he sees. Cressida flirts with Diomedes, yet is occasionally struck by guilt. She appears to lust after him, even giving him Troilus's sleeve as a love token, though quickly tries to retrieve it from him in a struggle, offering her own body in trade. Diomedes insists he will have both. He exits, having planned a return visit. Troilus is mad with jealousy and anger throughout the scene, but she never realises he is close by. Her final lines of the play are:
Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee,
But with my heart the other eye doth see.
Ah, poor our sex! This fault in us I find,
The error of our eye doth direct our mind:
What error leads must err. O, then conclude
Minds swayed by eyes are full of turpitude. (122-127)
Later, we are told of things that concern her: for example, the letter Troilus receives which he tears up, and Troilus' horse which Diomedes sends to her as a prize after knocking him out of the saddle in battle.
Contemporary criticism
Troilus and CressidaTroilus and Cressida
Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. It was also 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...
has little performance history prior to the 20th Century. Cressida's character is as isolated from framing as the rest of the story - we never know how her life ends, there is no 'ever after' for her, and even her beginning is mysterious to us. She appears a witty young girl, only to become a serious, thoughtful, and thought-provoking woman in moments of reflection. Carol Rutter explores the reasons why Cressida is so fascinating. She writes:
[...] the challenge Shakespeare constructs for this play is to put before us a Cressida, who, like the fair (but dark) lady of the sonnets is, in Eve Sedgwick’s memorable term, ‘oxymoron militant’, a genuine contradiction.
Rutter has much to say on Cressida's self-awareness. Firstly, that Cressida is unique, that she is something entirely, radically new, the woman who behaves like a man, who betrays the man, secondly, that:
Two voices seem to be speaking [...] Where has Cressida learnt this ‘instruction’? [...] the speech is neurotic, pragmatic, anti-romantic – yet it’s form is a sonnet [...] it discloses strategic schizophrenia [...] by this agenda, to win at love, a woman must play false, act double. She must separate instinct from sexual performance [...]
Juliet Stevenson
Juliet Stevenson
Juliet Anne Virginia Stevenson, CBE is an English actor of stage and screen.- Early life :Stevenson was born in Kelvedon, Essex, England, the daughter of Virginia Ruth , a teacher, and Michael Guy Stevenson, an army officer. Stevenson's father was in the army and was posted to a new place every...
commented in Rutter's book Clamorous Voices that such roles inspire an actor to:
[...] react against the way tradition and prejudice have stigmatised them – Cressida the whore [...] every time they’re judged you feel protective. Perhaps too protective. So you might end up playing a Cressida who is above reproach.
The main question as regards Shakespeare's Cressida is centralised around whether she is simply a 'whore', or if she is more complex, and worth further attention due to her obvious intelligence and duality.