Shakespeare's farcical take on the Illiad

Troilus and Cressida - Sylvan Barnett, Daniel Seltzer, William Shakespeare

This is one of Shakespeare's stranger plays, and though the characters of the title do play a role in the play albeit it is a quite minor one. The play is set during the Trojan War and basically follows the plot of the Illiad, though Shakespeare adds some quite comic twists to the main characters.

Troilus and Cressida are two Trojans who are in love, but Cressida is given over to the Greeks in exchange for a prisoner. Troilus then sneaks into the Greek camp to discover that his beloved is flirting with a Greek and his heart is broken. However, this, as mentioned, is only a minor part of the play as the major part is focused not so much on the wrath of Achillies, but rather on the sulking of Achillies.

Achillies spends most of the time in the play sulking over the fact that Agamemnon took a woman that he wanted and as such refuses to fight. Hector, the Trojan hero, taunts the Greeks seeking a one on one combat, but Achillies, the Greek hero, refuses to fight. Ajax is then chosen, however he does not get the opportunity to actually fight as Achilles' lover, Patroclus, steals Achilles' armour and goes to fight in his place. Hector kills Patroclus which snaps Achilles out of his misery and brings him back onto battlefield. However, Achillies does not actually lay the killing blow but rather orders his troops to surround Hector and kill him.

While in many cases this play is a tragedy, it is quite farcical. The character of Achillies is actually quite pathetic. He spends most of the play in his tent sulking (as he does in The Illiad), and when he finally emerges to show the Trojans that he is actually a great warrior, he doesn't actually do anything: rather gets his men to do his dirty work. Thus Achillies is not portrayed in all that great a light.

It is quite possible that this was the thought that went through Shakespeare's head when he considered the original text, though the source is most likely Chaucer's Troilus and Cresyde as opposed to the Illiad (which Shakespeare could not read as he could not read Greek). Further, to me, Achillies does not seem to be a truly heroic character because in the epic poem he spends most of his time sulking over a slave girl and having a spat with Agamemnon. Still, the Greek idea of heroism is quite different from ours because Odysseus does not come out as a very admirable character in the Odyssey. In fact, for a man who was married to a very loyal wife, he is not the most faithful of people. I guess that is the nature of a male dominated society: the woman is praised for her chastity while the male is praised for his virility.

I was probably a bit hasty in suggesting that Shakespeare did not read the Illiad simply because it is one of those foundational works of Western Literature. As such, I would be surprised if there were not a Latin, or even an English translation to which Shakespeare had access. If you look at the characters in the play you will note that the Latin spellings are used (Ulysses instead of Odysseus and Hecube instead of Hecabe). I also have noticed that pretty much every character that appears in the Illiad makes an appearance in this play, and some, such as Aeneas, seem to play a larger role.

Now that I have read Chaucer's poem, I have to say that my feelings are that there are some significant differences. Okay, Chaucer divides his poem into five sections in the same way that Shakespeare divides his plays into five acts, but Shakespeare had always been doing this (and if you look at other plays of the period, such as those by Marlowe, you will notice a similar structure). The Chaucer poem seems to revolve around the love affair between Troilus and Cressida, where as this play jumps between the love affair and a re-enactment of the Illiad.

While my knowledge of literary history back in those days is limited, I suspect that the audience would have been familiar with the Illiad, or at least the story. The reason I suggest this is because theatre was one of the main forms of entertainment in those days. Even in the late 19th century the masses were still visiting the theatre, and if you have been to London, you will know that there are quite a lot of theatres dotting the West End. There was no television and there was no sport and as such this was the only form of mass entertainment available. In a way, a play at the Globe in the 16th Century would be like going to the cinema, and a play by Shakespeare would be similar to a movie by Spielburg.

In many ways the plays were not targeted at the intellectual aristocrats but rather to the common people and as such one can expect a lot of vulgarity. As a friend said to me today people have actively cleaned up Shakespearian plays for the purpose of allowing children to read them, though these days much of the vulgarity in these plays would be lost to us. As an example, I will finish off by quoting my favourite lines from this play. However, before I do that, I want to say a few things about the character of Thersities.

Apparently Thersities does appear in the Iliad, and is a not a minor character in Greek mythology. As suggested in Wikipedia, Thersities does not have a last name in the Iliad suggesting that he is a commoner, however in other epics he does. He is a strange character: very crude, rude, and abusive. Some have suggested that he is the Shakespearian fool in this play, but a part of me feels that he is so much more than a fool. Yes, he appears as a means of light comic relief, but remember Troilus and Cresida is not a tragedy, if anything it is a tragi-comedy, or we could use the more modern term black comedy. However I do not actually think it is as such because in Troilus and Cressida, we are not laughing at death, we are laughing at the stupidity of the characters on stage, which is broken up by the romance of the Troilus and Cressida, and then are heartbroken when we see Cressida discard Troilus for the Greeks (and we have a very strange scene in this play where Cressida is passed around the Greek generals where they all get the opportunity to 'kiss' her). I seem to have wondered off topic, but as I promised, here is the quote:

 

Thersites: Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk. Thou art said to be Achille's male varlet.

Patroclus: Male varlet, you rogue. What's that?

Thersites: Why, his masculine whore.

 

Source: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/187711290