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Troilus and Cressida

A drama in five acts by William Shakespeare, first performed about 1601-02, usually classified as one of his "problem plays" or "dark" comedies.   One of Shakespeare's longest plays, it is based primarily  on  the Iliad and on 15th-century accounts of the Trojan War, as well as Geoffrey Chaucer's love poem Troilus and Criseyde.   Far from heroic or epic ,Troilus and Cressida takes a cynical bent in its portrayal of the Trojan War, with Achilles  portrayed as an egocentric prima donna, Agamemnon as a pompous blowhard, and the entire Greek camp in general portrayed as a pack of drunken, coarse thugs.   Instead of her traditional portrayal as a victim of the Greeks, Cressida is shown as two-faced, first pledging her love for the Trojan prince Troilus, then later reveling in her status as hostage in the Greek camp, making what are obviously sexual advances to the various Greek leaders, in a scene some have likened to a sexually provocative boy being introduced to the residents of a prison cell block.   The entire play's presentation is decidedly biased in favor of the Trojans, most likely because of traditional legends of the time, which held the English monarchy as being descended from Brute, traditional founder of London and a descendant of the Trojan prince Aeneas, and thus from the very rulers of the beseiged city of Troy.   While the drama does include the death of Hector at the hands of Achilles in vengeance for the slaying of Patroclus, Patroclus is never presented as anything more than a close friend of Achilles, and Hector's death is shown not in a face-to-face duel with Achilles, but in a cowardly ambush by the Greek warrior.   Those unfamiliar with the full canon of accounts of the Trojan War will miss the irony of Troilus' pledge of revenge on Achilles and the Greeks at the play's conclusion, as he is in fact later killed by Achilles after refusing to submit to him sexually.

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