Troilus and Cressida Act One – “Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing… Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is…”

Troilus and Cressida Act One – “Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing… Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is…”

After the ‘triumph’ of a complex play like ‘Hamlet’ it is possible that Shakespeare sat down in 1602 and decided to tackle a project he had been thinking of for a long time. He knew that Elizabethan audiences could accept plays that were complex in ideas characters and themes and now he wanted to challenge the boundaries of their understanding of dramatic style and form. 

The Globe Theatre was proving a financial and popular success and ‘Twelfth Night’ had been a triumph when it was revived there in May, June and July of 1602 along with ‘Hamlet’ and other plays. As the weather turned colder and The Globe closed its doors, Shakespeare’s mind turned to what new project he could premiere at an indoor venue in Winter at one of the inns or colleges inhabited and run by the lawyers in London. He was also probably thinking of making this new play easily transferable to The Globe and its more eclectic audience in May in the Summer of 1603. It is then that he probably burnt the late night candle with re-reading Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and Chaucer's fourteenth-century epic poem, Troilus and Criseyde. Chaucer and the work of the Ancient Greeks were undergoing a revival in publishing at that time, yet strangely, not too many dramatic versions had made it to the stage and those that did were largely unsuccessful. It must have struck Shakespeare that these stories were absurdly tragic and romantic to the point of strangeness and Shakespeare knew that his audience would know the end of the story involving Cressida's treachery and Hector's death well. With a passion for the story in hand and a good idea of what an audience might expect and how to still challenge them, Shakespeare would have sat at his table sometime on a dark night in October 1602 and started writing the Prologue to one of his most strange and problematic of his plays - ‘Troilus and Cressida’.

Enter an actor dressed as a soldier, to deliver the Prologue. The well-known prelude to the Trojan War and the beginnings of the Trojan War are retold and the play’s events which take place in the seventh year of the war in Troy are revealed.

We enter the walls of the besieged city of Troy and encounter Troilus who claims he is unable to fight. No, not the Greeks, but the pain in his heart that comes from love for Pandarus's niece, Cressida. Cressida is not in everyone’s good books because her father, a priest in Troy, has already left the city and joined the Greeks). Pandarus says that he has been advocating for and praising Troilus to his niece for some time and complains that he doesn’t seem to have received much thanks for this. Pandarus leaves and Troilus complains that although Pandarus seems tetchy and moody, he knows that working with him is his best hope of winning Cressida’s love. Aeneas enters bringing the latest from the battlefield including the wounding of Paris. Troilus decides he better join his other Trojans on the battlefield.

We go forward in time a little to another part of Troy near one of the gates of the city and we encounter Cressida talking to a servant about how a Greek warrior had got the better of the great Trojan Prince Hector the day before and how this has spurred on Hector in this day’s battle. Pandarus enters and as the Trojan men return from the day’s battle and parade past them, Pandarus praises each one, but saves his greatest praise for Troilus. When Pandarus leaves we find out that Cressida in fact loves Troilus but she is enjoying his adoration of her and wants to hold off a little longer before outwardly showing her affections.

“But more in Troilus thousand fold I see

Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be;

Yet hold I 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 ungain'd 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; ungain'd, beseech:

Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear,

Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.”

We magically cross over the walls of Troy to the Greek encampment, where King Agamemnon is trying to rally some positive vibe amongst his fellow kings and generals who seem a little down (as you can only get after seven years of war and an unsuccessful siege). The old general Nestor, bucks up a bit and says that although they haven’t won, there have been some individual acts of heroics. Ulysses, astute man that he is, points out that it is not the fact that the war is long without a win that is their problem but the breakdown of authority amongst the Greeks caused by Achilles, their greatest soldier, sitting all day in his tent with his male lover refusing to fight and scoffing at others. Others like Ajax seem to have also been put off their game.

While they are discussing what to do, the Trojan Aeneas enters with a message and a challenge from the Trojan Prince Hector stating that he wants to challenge Greece’s greatest warrior in battle. The prize will be that the winner gets the loser’s wife. Agreeing to the challenge, the Greeks give food and lodging to Aeneas for the night and discuss who should accept the challenge. They know that the challenge is directed at Achilles, their greatest warrior, but they also know that if Achilles looses in battle that this would make their army’s morale go even lower. It is then that Ulysses comes up with the brilliant idea to put Ajax forward as the contender since if Ajax loses, then the Greeks can claim that Achilles would have won if he had put himself forward and this would also have the added plus of inflaming the proud Achilles because he, the obvious and best choice, had seen Ajax chosen before he was chosen. This they believe will be enough to make Achilles once more join the battlefield. Nestor praises the cunning of Ulysses’ plan:

“Ulysses,

Now I begin to relish thy advice;

And I will give a taste of it forthwith

To Agamemnon: go we to him straight.

Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone

Must tarre the mastiffs on, as 'twere their bone.”