23:38 Troilus and Cressida

Day 23 of 38:38
Troilus and Cressida

This is the first time I've read the play, and I don't have time to read it again right now (have to move on to the next one!), so there are several aspects I found interesting, but I'm not sure I have full, coherent thoughts about them yet. There is something going on in this play with identity. People keep asking who someone is, or making jokes about who someone is, or comparing one person to another.

Shakespeare clearly states in the prologue of the play that is begins in media res. In the middle of already happening action. But he forgets to tell us it will end that way too. I mean, what kind of ending was that? They all fight, and the play ends. There is no final scene between Troilus and Cressida, he doesn't die in battle, she doesn't kill herself, etc. It felt very abrupt.

I had heard that this was not a very nice play, and that's true. It reminds me of Merchant of Venice in that respect. Everyone's quite mean. There are a lot of very mean lines.

Also this is one of the plays where the title doesn't seem to accurately describe the play. Even though Helen isn't a very large character, there is, of course, a lot of talking about her. I thought these two moments were very striking.

Troilus Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.

Paris You are too bitter to your countrywoman.
Diomedes She's bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris.
For every false drop in her bawdy veins
A Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scruple
Of her contaminated carrion weight
A Troyan hath been slain. Since she could speak,
She hath not given so many good words breath
As for her Greeks and Troyans suffered death.
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Favorite Female Character:
Cressida
Favorite Male Character:
not sure

Laugh out loud:

"That's what she said!":
Cressida My lord, come you again into my chamber.
You smile and mock me, as if I meant naughtily.

How insulting:
Thersites Thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's purse, thou!

Shakey loves his meta:
Prologue our play
Leaps o’er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.

Oh, misogyny:
Troilus But I am weaker than a woman's tear...
Less valiant than the virgin in the night

Also

Patroclus A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loathed than an effeminate man
In time of action.

Wow. That's mean.

Boys are silly:
Ulysses How one man eats into another's pride
While pride is feasting in his wantonness!

Favorite Moment/Line:
In Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf’d,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war: sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
The ravish’d Helen, Menelaus’ queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps; and that’s the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come,
And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their war-like fraughtage: now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam’s six-gated city,
Dardan, and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Trojan, 16
And Antenorides, with massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperr 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 arm’d, but not in confidence
Of author’s pen or actor’s voice, but suited
In like conditions as our argument,
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o’er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away
To 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.