Troilus. Because not there; this woman's answer sorts, For womanish it is to be from thence. What news, Æneas, from the field to-day? Eneas. That Paris is returned home and hurt. Eneas. Troilus, by Menelaus. Troilus. Let Paris bleed: 't is but a scar to scorn; Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn. 109 [Alarum. Eneas. Hark, what good sport is out of town to-day! Troilus. Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may.' But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither? Eneas. In all swift haste. Troilus. Come, go we then together. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The Same. A Street. Cressida. Who were those went by? Queen Hecuba and Helen. Cressida. And whither go they? Up to the eastern tower, Whose height commands as subject all the vale, He chid Andromache and struck his armourer, In Hector's wrath. Cressida. What was his cause of anger? ΤΟ Alexander. The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector; They call him Ajax. Cressida. Good; and what of him? D 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 every thing, but every thing so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight. Cressida. But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry? 31 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. Cressida. Who comes here? Alexander. Madam, your uncle Pandarus. Enter PANDarus. Cressida. Hector's a gallant man. Alexander. As may be in the world, lady. Cressida. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus. 40 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. Cressida. So he says here. 51 50 Pandarus. True, he was so; I know the cause too. He'll lay about him to-day, 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. 60 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. 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. Pandarus. Condition, I had gone barefoot to India. 70 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. 79 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. or, as I suppose, to some botcher of Shakespeare, for he'd hardly have left such patches on his own work—each reader can judge for himself." Fleay thinks that this inferior work “may be only early.” II. THE SOURCES OF THE PLOT. If Shakespeare did not draw his materials from some earlier play, he probably took "the love-story" from Chaucer's Troilus and Cresseide, and "the camp story” from the Recuyell of the historyes of Troye, translated and drawen out of frenshe into englishe by W. Caxton, 1471 (from Raoul le Fèvre's Recueil des Histoires de Troyes), or Lydgate's Hystorye, Sege and dystruccyon of Troye, 1513, 1555 (from Guido di Colonna), or both. Thersites, or at least a hint of the character, seems to be taken from Chapman's Iliad, the first seven books of which appeared in 1597. Ward (Dramatic Lit. i. 433) remarks: "Though the story of Troy has continued to furnish poetic literature—and especially that of the drama-with themes, I am not aware that any other hand has followed Shakespeare's in reproducing the episode, mediæval rather than antique in its essence, of Troilus and Cressida." III. CRITICAL COMMENTS ON THE PLAY. [From Coleridge's "Lectures upon Shakspeare." *] There is no one of Shakspeare's plays harder to characterize. The name, and the remembrances connected with it, prepare us for the representation of attachment no less faithful than fervent on the side of the youth, and of sudden and shameless inconstancy on the part of the lady. And this is, indeed, as the gold thread on which the scenes are strung, though often kept out of sight, and out of mind by gems of greater value than itself. But as Shakspeare calls forth noth *Coleridge's Works (Harper's ed.), vol. iv. p. 98 fol. ing from the mausoleum of history, or the catacombs of tradition, without giving, or eliciting, some permanent and general interest, and brings forward no subject which he does. not moralize or intellectualize, so here he has drawn in Cressida the portrait of a vehement passion, that, having its true origin and proper cause in warmth of temperament, fastens on, rather than fixes to, some one object by liking_and___ temporary preference. "There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out This Shakspeare has contrasted with the profound affection represented in Troilus, and alone worthy the name of love-affection, passionate indeed, swollen with the confluence of youthful instincts and youthful fancy, and growing in the radiance of hope newly risen, in short enlarged by the collective sympathies of nature; but still having a depth of calmer element in a will stronger than desire, more entire than choice, and which gives permanence to its own act by converting it into faith and duty. Hence with excellent judgment, and with an excellence higher than mere judgment can give, at the close of the play, when Cressida has sunk into infamy below retrieval and beneath hope, the same will, which had been the substance and the basis of his love, while the restless pleasures and passionate longings, like sea-waves, had tossed but on its surface-this same moral energy is represented as snatching him aloof from all neighbour. hood with her dishonour, from all lingering fondness and languishing regrets, whilst it rushes with him into other and nobler duties, and deepens the channel which his heroic brother's death had left empty for its collected flood. Yet another secondary and subordinate purpose Shakspeare has inwoven with his delineation of these two characters-that of opposing the inferior civilization, but purer morals, of the Trojans to the refinements, deep policy, but duplicity and sensual corruptions of the Greeks. |