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Troilus and Cressida TROILUS AND CRESSIDA Edited by ANTHONY B. DAWSON The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge, ,UK West thStreet, New York, -, USA Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, , Australia Ruiz de Alarco´n , Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town , SouthAfrica http://www.cambridge.org C Cambridge University Press This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published Reprinted Printed in the United Kingdom at University Press, Cambridge Typeface Ehrhard MT / pt System LATEX ε [ ] A catalogue record for this book is available fromthe British Library hardback paperback CONTENTS List of illustrations page vi Acknowledgements vii List of abbreviations and conventions ix Introduction Style and genre: heap of rubbish, salty comedy, or what? The play in its time Symmetrical structures Interpreting the language Cressida Literary identity Scepticism and speculation The play in performance Note on the text The epistle to the reader List of characters THE PLAY Textual analysis Appendix: Sources of the play Reading list v ILLUSTRATIONS Cressida is delivered to Diomedes in exchange for Antenor, from Thomas Hanmer’s edition(). page Simon Russell Beale as Thersites in Sam Mendes’ production (RSC ). Diomedes and Cressida, watched by Troilus, an engraving by Henry Fuseli, . Cressida greeted by the Greek generals, from Howard Staunton’s edition (). Cassandra, by Byam Shaw, . ElspethKeithas Thersites in William Poel’s production, . Pandarus, Helen, and Paris in Tyrone Guthrie’s Old Vic production, . Hector surrounded by Achilles and his Myrmidons, in the RSC production of . Combat of Ajax and Hector in John Barton’s RSC production. Juliet Stevenson as Cressida faces the Greek generals (RSC ). Pandarus and Cressida in Dieter Dorn’s production (Munich, ). Oda Sternberg, photo. Cressida and Pandarus relaxing by the ‘pool’ in Sam Mendes’ production (RSC ). The first ‘state’ of the quarto title page. The second ‘state’ of the quarto title page. Illustrations , , ,and are reproduced by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library; and from the Theatre Museum (London) collection by permission of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum; , , , ,and by permission of the Shakespeare Centre Library, Stratford-upon-Avon; by permission of the photographer; and by permission of the British Library. vi TROILUS AND CRESSIDA Prologue [Enter the in armour] In Troy there lies the scene: from isles of Greece The princes orgulous, their high blood chafed, 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 th’Athenian bay Put forth toward Phrygia, and their vow is made To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures The ravished 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 warlike freightage; now on Dardan plains The fresh and yet unbruised` Greeks do pitch Prologue –] ; not in ] Walker (after Collier ); . Spoken by one in Armour / Singer; not in ] Walker; not in immures] ; emures barks] ; Barke freightage] (frautage) Prologue Phrygia An area in Asia minor, now Turkey, SD The Prologue, though it appears only in , where Troy was thought to have been located. was probably written for an early performance (see immures walls. n.). It certainly suggests a performance of some ravished stolen, abducted. The word has a kind and would thus contradict the claims of those sexual connotation but does not necessarily imply who think the play was never acted. In recent pro- a lack of consent on Helen’s part. ductions it has been spoken by a variety of charac- Tenedos An island off the coast near Troy. ters, most often Thersites or Pandarus; strangely, deep-drawing barks boats (‘barks’) that be- the speech contains no reference to Troilus and cause of their size and weight ‘draw’, i.e. dis- Cressida. place, a great depth of water (OED Draw v ). orgulous proud. The word occurs in Caxton, Cf. ... but was already archaic in . disgorge empty out. high blood aristocratic valour. warlike freightage i.e. the Greek troops. chafed heated, brought to the boiling point Dardan Trojan; the word derives from (cf. modern ‘chafing-dish’). ‘Dardanus’, son of Zeus and grandfather of Tros, – Have...Phrygia The details here (the founder of Troy, as described in The Iliad . ‘port of Athens’, ‘Sixty and nine’) are taken from ff. (Chapman, Iliads). Caxton, but the high heroic tone, tinged with irony, yet unbruis`ed not yet wounded. This is the is Shakespeare’s own. first of many instances in the play of words be- Fraught Loaded, weighed down. ginning with the prefix ‘un–’ (e.g. ‘unpractised’, crownets coronets, small crowns. ..; ‘ungracious’, ..; ‘ungained’, ..; . Troilus and Cressida [] Their brave pavilions. Priam’s six-gated city, Dardan and Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien, And Antenorides with massy staples And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts Spar 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 armed, 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. [Exit] Antenorides] Theobald; Antenonidus Spar] Pope (Sperre; conj. Theobald); Stirre ] Walker (subst.); not in ‘unbodied’, .., etc.); many of these are Shake- .., .., .. and . spearean coinages. Sets...hazard Puts everything at risk, as brave splendid. The word, together with the in a game of chance (OED Hazard sb , ). chivalric associations of ‘pavilions’ (large tents), armed The Prologue wears armour appro- creates a sense of grandeur offset by the venality priate to the occasion. There is probably a satiri- of the Greek heroes when they appear. cal allusion here to Jonson’s play, Poetaster (), – Dardan...Antenorides The names of which also features an armed prologue. If so, the six gates of Troy (taken from Caxton). this would suggest that the Prologue, though not – massy...bolts huge metal braces into printed till , was written for an early perfor- which fit correspondingly huge bolts. mance, since only then would the allusion have had Spar up Enclose and secure (OED v ). much bite. See Introduction, p. Theobald’s suggestion for ’s ‘Stirre’ puts the em- – not...voice without much confidence in phasis where the rest of the sentence would either play or performance – a comment in the self- seem to require – on the protective strength of deprecating style of Shakespeare’s prologues (e.g. the city’s gates. Compare ‘There sparred up in H) and epilogues (e.g. AYLI). See Introduction, gates, / The valiant Thaebane...afollowing fight p. awaites’ (William Warner, Albion’s England, .. – suited...argument dressed in a way (), cited in OED). Technically, the verb should suitable to our theme. be singular, since the subject is ‘city’ (), but the vaunt beginning (cf. ‘vanguard’). ‘Vaunt and naming of the six gates makes the grammatical slip- firstlings’ is deliberately and sonorously redundant, page understandable; some editors, notably Palmer, the first of many such doublets in the play. There have regarded ‘sons of Troy’ as the subject of the may also be a hint of ‘vaunt’ in the sense of ‘boast’, sentence and envisaged them ‘stirring up’ the city. the kind of thing that warriors do before combat. But such a reading not only makes the grammar Beginning...middle Epic poems also typ- awkward but misses the emphasis on protection. ically begin in medias res – a further instance of the expectation The feeling of anticipation on ironically heightened rhetoric of this speech. both sides is personified, and imagined to be digested suitably contained in; the term in- flirtatiously toying with (‘tickling’) the lively (‘skit- troduces the pervasive strain of eating and cooking tish’) spirits of the soldiers. Bevington notes that images in the play. ‘tickle’ occurs frequently in the play, usually with War, like theatrical success, was notoriously teasingly sexual implications – see, for example, and proverbially (Dent ) chancy. [] Troilus and Cressida .. [.] Enter and Call here my varlet – I’ll unarm again. Why should I war without the walls of Troy That find such cruel battle here within? Each Trojan that is master of his heart, Let him to field. Troilus, alas, hath none. Will this gear ne’er be mended? The Greeks are strong and skilful to their strength, Fierce to their skill and to their fierceness valiant, But I am weaker than a woman’s tear, Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance, Less valiant than the virgin in the night, And skilless as unpractised infancy. Well, I have told you enough of this. For my part, I’ll not meddle nor make no farther: he that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding. Have I not tarried? Ay, the grinding, but you must tarry the bolting. Have I not tarried? Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leavening. Still have I tarried. Act , Scene .] (Actus Primus. Scœna Prima.); not in must] ; must needes leavening] ; leau’ning (first setting); leau’ing (second setting) Act , Scene they apply to him. All of this indicates the self- Call...varlet Troilus, coming onstage consciousness with which he suffers the pangs of armed but with no taste for battle, directs an love. offstage attendant to call his personal servant (‘var- unpractised inexperienced. let’). – not...farther have nothing more to do – The image of love as an internal battle is with.
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