The Library Annex

Who, I? alas, it is my vice, my fault:
While others fish with craft for great opinion,
I with great truth catch more simplicity;
Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,
With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.
Fear not my truth: the moral of my wit
Is – plain and true; there’s all the reach of it.

Set during the Trojan war alongside legendary characters such as Hector, Achilles, Agamemnon, Priam, Ajax, Paris, Helen and others, Shakespeare twists a tale of reason pitted against ego, pride and ambition against nobility and love against war. Troilus, the younger son of King Priam of Troy, and Cressida, a beautiful and smart young woman, find themselves entwined amidst insurmountable circumstances.

An epic tale such as this needs levity and Thersites stands ready to vent what the audience might think as they watch the play. I love his bold speech, his courageous insults and cynical abandon. He does not share warrior or royal characteristics embodied by others. He is, rather, a deformed cripple who serves Achilles, presenting perhaps the most striking contrast of characters in the play. And yet, ironically, he surely “calls it like he sees it” without apparent fear of repercusion. Many might call him the fool of the play yet all he does is highlight what makes everyone else the fool.

In so doing, he illustrates one of the major themes of the play: reason and passion. Virgil tells us that the Trojan War begins with the theft of Helen from Greece by Paris to Troy. Reason dictates, as Hector argues in the play, that saving soldiers and citizens by giving Helen back to Menaleous is the reasonable course of action. And yet the war continues in order to save their national identity of power and strength embodied in Paris’ royal personage. Passion, ego and ambition win the argument.

Alas, Shakespeare names the play Troilus and Cressida highlighting their centralized part of the story. At a glance, their relationship is nauseatingly tragic. To have confessed and enjoyed reciprocated love for a night only to have it taken away would dull the spark of any soul. As the last act resolves, I still hope for a reunion bewteen them or a misunderstanding corrected. But it seems love slowly and bitterly drains from the souls of those with aspirations to fight for it in war. And in the process, a piece of the individual lovers extinguishes.

If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
If soul guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,
If sanctimony be the gods’ delight,
If there be a rule in unity itself,
This is not she. O madness of discourse,
That cause sets up with and against itself!
Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt
Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid!

What an epic play; a story in which Shakespeare promises not to direct the audience towards certain thoughts or feelings. “Like, or find fault; do as your pleasures are; Now good or bad, ’tis but the chance of war.” And love.