Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  Troilus is at once anxious to placate Pandarus, who, after all, remains the only bridge by which he can reach Cressida. Pandarus, however, pushing his advantage, rushes off, leaving Troilus behind to sing Cressida's praises, calling on Apollo (the god of poetry) to help him:

  Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,

  What Cressid is…

  —Act I, scene i, 102-3

  It is interesting that Apollo, the personification of male beauty, is so often tragically unsuccessful in his loves. Cassandra refused him, for instance, and Daphne (see page I-36) is an even more famous love.

  What news, Aeneas.. .

  Troilus' soliloquy ends when another Trojan warrior enters. He is in full armor, on his way to the battle, and is rather puzzled that Troilus is lingering in Troy. Troilus asks:

  What news, Aeneas, from the field today?

  —Act I, scene i, line 11:

  Aeneas, in the legends, is a son of none other than Venus, though hi father, Anchises, was a mortal man. Aeneas was not a Trojan exactly but a Dardanian; that is, the inhabitant of a district neighboring Troy proper He attempted to maintain neutrality in the war at first but the attacks c Achilles forced him to join forces with Priam and his sons.

  None of this is in the Iliad. In the Iliad he is an ardent Trojan fighter second only to Hector. He is a darling of the gods and is saved by Venus and Apollo when about to be killed by Diomedes, and on another occasion by Neptune, when it is Achilles who is about to kill him.

  Homer makes it quite plain that Aeneas is not fated to die in the general sack that destroys Troy (see page I-209). This was the basis of Vergil plot in the Aeneid, which deals with the wanderings of Aeneas after the destruction of Troy.

  Because Aeneas was viewed as the ancestor of the Romans, he had to be treated with particular care by Western poets. The English had to 1 even more careful, for they aped the Romans in their search for a glorious beginning.

  Several medieval chroniclers in England composed versions of a legendary past that traced the early Britons back to Troy. It seems, according them, that Aeneas had had a great-grandson, Brute, who, having inadvertently killed his father, fled Italy and finally landed in the northern island, which got its name of "Britain" from him.

  There is absolutely nothing to it, of course, other than the accidental similarity between the common Roman name Brute or Brutus and the name of Britain. Nevertheless it gave the English a profound interest in the tale of Troy and a strong pro-Trojan sympathy. In particular, Aeneas must be, and is, idealized. In Troilus and Cressida he is gay, debonair, and the perfect medieval knight.

  … Menelaus' horn

  Aeneas tells Troilus that Paris has been wounded in a duel with Menelaus. (Such a duel is described in Book Three of the Iliad and it is after that duel, which Menelaus wins, that a truce is negotiated, a truce which is broken by Pandarus' arrow-see page I-79).

  Troilus shrugs it off:

  Let Paris bleed; 'tis but a scar to scorn:

  Paris is gored with Menelaus' horn.

  —Act I, scene i, lines 115-16

  There was an accepted convention in Shakespearean England that a betrayed husband had horns; invisible ones, of course. This may be from a consideration of the sexual life of the polygamous stags, who fight each other for the possession of a harem of does. The deceived husband is, perhaps, likened to a defeated stag; hence his horns.

  The husband whose wife had fooled him was universally viewed with amused contempt in Shakespeare's time. This attitude arose, perhaps, from the conventions of courtly love, (see page I-54) where the knight was, ideally, supposed to love the wife of another. In all such tales, the husband was the villain (witness the well-known romance of Tristan and Iseult) and the audience cheered when the horns were, so to speak, placed on his forehead.

  The betrayed husband was therefore an inexhaustible theme for comedy and any mention of horns or horned animals, even any reference to foreheads, was the signal for laughter-and Shakespeare made the most of that.

  Thus it is that Troilus scorns poor wronged Menelaus. To modern ears, which do not find adultery either as serious or as comic as the Elizabethans did, such jests fall flat.

  Queen Hecuba …

  The scene shifts to Cressida now. She enters with her servant, Alexander, looking after two women who have hastened by. She inquires who those were who passed and Alexander answers:

  Queen Hecuba and Helen.

  —Act I, scene ii, line 1b

  Queen Hecuba (or Hecabe, in the Greek form) was the second wife of Priam. She bore him nineteen of his sixty-two children, including Hector, Paris, Troilus, and Cassandra of those mentioned so far. Because of her sufferings, she was a favorite character in tragic dramas devoted to the Trojan War and, indeed, in Hamlet Shakespeare makes use of this fact indirectly (see page II-115). Here, in Troilus and Cressida, however, she never appears onstage.

  He chid Andromache …

  Apparently the two women are hastening to the walls to see the battle, for they fear it may be going poorly. After all, even Hector is perturbed, or as the servant says:

  Hector, whose patience Is as a virtue fixed, today was moved.

  He chid Andromache, and struck his armorer,

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 4-6

  Andromache is Hector's wife. The last part of Book Six of the Iliad is devoted to a scene in which she hurries with her infant son, Scamandrius, to meet Hector before he leaves the city on his way to the battle. It is the most touching scene of married love in Homer. Andromache pleads with Hector to stay in the city, for all her own relatives are dead. "So, dear Hector," she says, "you are now not merely my husband-you are father, mother, and brother, too!"

  But Hector must go and he reaches out his arms to give his son a farewell and to pray over him, hoping that someday the child's feats will be such that all will agree that "His father was the lesser man!" Alas, it was not to be, for Hector's son was killed when Troy was destroyed.

  A lord of Troyan blood.,.

  To make Hector scold Andromache, something most unusual must have happened. Cressida asks what that might be and is told:

  … there is among the Greeks

  A lord of Troyan blood, nephew to Hector;

  They call him Ajax.

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 12-14

  Ajax plays a great role in the Iliad. He is one of two men in the epic that bears the name. Since the one here referred to is particularly large, he is called "Ajax the Greater." Of the two, only "the Greater" appears in Troilus and Cressida, so it suffices to call him Ajax.

  In the Iliad Ajax is the strongest of the Greeks, save only for Achilles, but is considerably more renowned for his strength than for his subtlety. He is never wounded in the Iliad, and he is the only important hero who never at any time personally receives the help of a god or a goddess. He is the epitome of success through hard work, without inspiration.

  He is not, in the Iliad, of Trojan blood; nor is he a nephew to Hector. The attribution of Trojan blood to Ajax is probably the result of confusion with Ajax's half brother (see page I-103).

  … a gouty Briareus …

  Alexander goes on to describe Ajax and makes him out to be a parody of the picture presented in Homer; as nothing more than a stolid, dim-witted man-mountain. He says of Ajax:

  … he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use,

  or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 29-30

  Briareus was an earthborn monster with fifty heads and a hundred arms. The most important myth in which he figured was one in which the tale of a revolt against Jupiter is central. The other gods, led by Neptune and Apollo, succeed in binding Jupiter, and he might have been overthrown, but for the action of a sea nymph, who hastily brought Briareus to the rescue. The monster untied Jupiter and by his presence cowed the other gods.

  As for Argus, he was a monster with a hundred eyes who was sent by Juno (Hera) in order that he might watch the nymph Io. Io
had been one of Jupiter's many loves, and that god had turned her into a heifer to hide her from Juno, but unsuccessfully. Argus' vigilance (his eyes never closed in unison; fifty at least were always open and alert) would prevent Jupiter from ever turning Io back into human form.

  Jupiter sent Mercury (Hermes) to the rescue. Mercury lulled Argus to a simultaneous hundred-eyed sleep with a soothing lullaby and then cut off his head. Juno placed Argus' many eyes in the tail of her favorite bird, the peacock.

  Alexander's description of Ajax, in other words, is that of a man who has all the physical attributes required for a warrior but who lacks the intelligence to make those attributes work for him.

  And, apparently, what bothers Hector is that this mule of a man has struck him down. Hector cannot help but feel the shame of it.

  That's Anterior …

  Pandarus arrives on the scene and at once begins busily to praise Troilus, hoping to arouse Cressida's ardor. Cressida, who knows exactly what he is doing, teases him unmercifully by never allowing his praises to stand but turning everything on its head.

  Soon the men are returning from the field at the close of the day, and Pandarus decides to let Troilus' own appearance do the talking. He leads Cressida to a place where she can see them, continuing to promise her Troilus, but naming the others as they pass.

  Aeneas passes first and is praised, of course. (Aeneas is always praised-he must be.) Then comes another, and Pandarus says:

  That's Anterior. He has a shrewd wit, I can tell you;

  and he's man good enough-he's one

  o' the soundest judgments in Troy whosoever. ..

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 197-99

  In the Iliad Antenor was one of the elders of Troy. He was a councilor of Priam and a man of good judgment, as Shakespeare says, but far too old to fight. There is undoubtedly confusion here with Agenor, his son, who in the Iliad plays an important role as a Trojan warrior.

  That's Helenus …

  Pandarus' fussing becomes funnier and funnier. Hector and Paris pass and he praises them with forced enthusiasm, but keeps watching for Troilus and growing constantly more upset because Troilus doesn't appear.

  When Cressida asks the name of one of the passing warriors, Pandarus answers absently:

  That's Helenus. 1 marvel where Troilus is.

  That's Helenus. I think he went not forth today.

  That's Helenus.

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 227-29

  Helenus was another son of Priam and Hecuba,, and, according to some accounts, a twin brother of Cassandra. He was likewise blessed with the powers of a soothsayer and was a priest. He was the only one of Priam's sons to survive the fall of Troy (perhaps because of his priestly character) and in the end, according to some of the later tales, married Andromache, Hector's widow. Together they ended their lives ruling over Epirus, a district in northwestern Greece.

  … That's Deiphobus

  But Cressida is still teasing Pandarus unmercifully. She clearly knows all the men whom Pandarus is identifying. In fact, she sees Troilus before Pandarus does and asks in mock disdain:

  What sneaking fellow comes yonder?

  —Act I, scene ii, line 234

  And, at the crisis, Pandarus fails to recognize him after all, saying:

  Where? Yonder? That's Deiphobus.

  —Act I, scene ii, line 235

  Only belatedly does he realize it is Troilus.

  Deiphobus is still another son of Priam and Hecuba. After Paris dies in battle, it is he who next marries Helen. As a result, when Troy is taken, he is killed by Menelaus and his corpse is hideously mangled.

  Pandarus makes up for his tardiness in recognizing Troilus by setting up such a caterwauling after him that Cressida is embarrassed; not so embarrassed, however, that she fails to continue her teasing.

  It is only after Pandarus leaves that she reveals in a soliloquy that she is actually in love with Troilus, but holds off because she thinks women are valued only as long as they are not attained.

  … after seven years' siege.. .

  With the third scene we find ourselves in the Greek camp for the first time.

  There is a general air of depression over the camp and Agamemnon, the commander in chief, is trying to instill heart in the warriors. Their troubles are, after all, long-standing ones, so why be disheartened now?

  … is it matter new to us

  That we come short of our suppose so far

  That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand;

  -Act I, scene iii, lines 10-12

  If this is the last year of the war, as it must be, then Troy's walls have been standing nine years, not seven-but that is a small error that makes no difference.

  Agamemnon goes on to point out that the difficulty of the task but tests their mettle and tries their worth.

  Agamemnon is in a difficult position, for as commander in chief of the Greek army, the chief odium will fall upon him if the expedition fails. He is commander in chief because he is the king of Mycenae, which at the time of the Trojan War was the chief city of Greece and gave its name to the Mycenaean Age. It declined soon after the Trojan War thanks to the devastation that accompanied the Dorian conquest of much of Greece. It was but a disregarded village in the days of Greece's greatest period, centuries later.

  Mycenae, located in the northeastern Peloponnesus, six miles north of Argos, has been excavated in the last century, and ample evidence has been discovered of past greatness.

  Agamemnon was the grandson of Pelops (see page I-68) and, in theory, he ruled over all of Greece, though in actual fact the princes of northern Greece (Achilles among them) were restive in the face of the claims of leadership on the part of the southern city, Mycenae.

  He was married to Clytemnestra, the daughter of Tyndareus, King of Sparta, a city located some fifty-five miles south of Mycenae.

  The younger sister of Clytemnestra was none other than Helen, over whom the Greeks and Trojans were fighting. Helen's beauty was such that her life, from beginning to end, was one of fatal attraction to men. While she was still a young girl of twelve, she was kidnapped, according to the legends, by the Athenian hero Theseus. She was rescued by her brothers, Castor and Polydeuces, and after she was restored, her father, Tyndareus, decided to marry her off and let her husband have the responsibility of holding her.

  That was easier said than done, for when the word went out that Helen's hand was to be given in marriage, all the heroes of Greece came to Sparta to compete for her. It seemed impossible to choose one without making enemies of all the others.

  It was Ulysses who had the solution. He had no real hope of gaining Helen for himself. He suggested to Tyndareus, therefore, that the competing heroes all be required to take an oath to agree to whatever decision was made as to Helen's husband and to promise to support that husband against anyone who might attempt to take Helen away from him. This was done and Ulysses was rewarded with the hand of Penelope, Helen's cousin.

  It was Menelaus who was chosen as Helen's husband. For one thing, he was wealthy; for another, he was the younger brother of the King of Mycenae, Agamemnon.

  Agamemnon himself could not compete for Helen because he was already married, but he pressed hard on behalf of his younger brother, and it was very likely because of the prestige and pressure of the "Great King" that Menelaus was accepted.

  This was a good stroke of policy on Agamemnon's part. Menelaus succeeded to the throne of Sparta, as Helen's husband. Since Menelaus was a rather passive character, dominated by his more forceful brother, Agamemnon found himself greatly strengthened by his indirect control of the important city of Sparta.

  By the same token, Paris' abduction of Helen was a serious blow to Agamemnon, for it weakened Menelaus' claim on the Spartan throne (which was Helen's rather than his own). Agamemnon had to push hard for a punitive expedition on Troy, and it may have been, again, the influence of the Great King, rather than any vow, which gathered the feudal lords of Greece into the expeditio
n.

  In the Iliad Agamemnon does not shine. His quarrel with Achilles, in which the Great King is entirely in the wrong, nearly wrecks the Greek cause, and on more than one occasion Homer (who is always respectful to him) shows him being deservedly corrected by others.

  … Nestor shall apply

  When Agamemnon is done, the oldest of the Greek leaders stands up to second his words:

  With due observance of thy godlike seat,

  Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply Thy latest words.

  —Act I, scene iii, lines 31-33

  In the Iliad Nestor is active among the Greeks despite the fact that he is described as ruling over the third generation of subjects. Although he is so old, he survives to see Troy sacked. Then, ten years after the fall of that city, when the last of the Greek warriors returns home, Nestor is still alive and still ruling in his city of Pylos on the southwestern shore of Greece. Pylos, like Mycenae, was an important center in the time of the Trojan War, but faded away in later tunes. It left not even a village behind.

  The frequent reference to Nestor's age made some of the Roman writers grant him two hundred years, but that is not really necessary. In the Mycenaean Age it is quite likely that the life expectancy would be no more than twenty-five to thirty years, and that few men would reach forty before violence or disease laid them low. If Nestor was seventy years old at the time of the play he would be ruling over the third generation of men, and even ten years after the fall of Troy, he would be only eighty.