Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida is a bitter, genre-defying play set in the seventh year of the Trojan War, in which a love affair and the heroic legends of Troy are both shown to be hollow.

Main characters

• Troilus, a Trojan prince
• Cressida, a Trojan woman
• Pandarus, her uncle and go-between
• Hector, Paris and Priam of Troy
• Agamemnon, Ulysses, Achilles, Ajax and Diomedes of the Greek army
• Thersites, a scurrilous Greek
• Helen

Plot summary

This summary gives away the ending.

Inside besieged Troy, the young prince Troilus is in love with Cressida, and her uncle Pandarus brings them together for a single night. The next morning Cressida is handed over to the Greeks in an exchange of prisoners. In the Greek camp she accepts the attentions of the warrior Diomedes, while Troilus watches in secret, unable to reconcile what he sees with the woman he loved.

Meanwhile the Greek leaders, stalled by the sulking Achilles, debate order and honour in grand speeches. Ulysses tries to shame Achilles into fighting by praising the oaf Ajax. The Trojans debate whether Helen is worth the war and decide to keep her. The play ends not with glory but with Achilles having his soldiers butcher the unarmed Hector, and with Pandarus bequeathing his diseases to the audience.

Themes

• Value and reputation
• War and the failure of heroism
• Love, time and betrayal
• Cynicism and satire

Famous lines

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

Ulysses, Act 3 Scene 3

More in our collection of famous Shakespeare quotes.

Sources

Shakespeare drew on Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, George Chapman's translation of Homer's Iliad (from 1598), and medieval Troy histories by Caxton and Lydgate.

On stage and screen

Its genre puzzled even its first editors: the 1609 quarto calls it a history and a comedy, while the First Folio squeezed it in between the histories and tragedies without listing it in the contents. It is usually grouped with the 'problem plays'. It found its audience in the 20th century, when its disenchantment with war felt modern.

See where Troilus and Cressida sits in Shakespeare's career on the timeline, or read about the playhouses it was written for.