Troilus and Cressida symbole

Hungry Swords

You know how you're always going around talking to your sword like it's a person who gets super hungry and a little cranky if it doesn't get its fill of blood and guts? Oh wait. You never do that? Well, Hector and Achilles do, so let's talk about it.

Check out how Hector speaks oh-so-lovingly to his sword after a long, hard day on the battlefield:

Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath:
Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death. (5.8.3-4)

Oh, Hector. You sweet talker! Just kidding, Shmoopers. There's nothing sweet about this— Hector has just killed a soldier because he wanted the guy's armor. Did we mention that the guy was just trying to run away from him? Here's the point we're trying to make: when Hector tells us his sword has finally had its "fill of blood and death," we're reminded that he has been acting a little greedy and a little bloodthirsty on the battlefield.

Okay. Now compare that to the way Achilles talks about his sword after he stabs Hector in the guts just a few moments later:

My half-supp'd sword that frankly would have fed,
Pleas'd with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed. (5.8.19-20)

Achilles has just killed Hector, but he brags that his sword's tummy isn't quite full from all the blood and guts it's "fed" on that day. Still, he admits that Hector was a tasty little snack, so his sword is kind of satisfied... for now. (Or, okay, maybe he's saying that it totes wasn't as much fun to kill Hector as he expected to be. Either way.)

Aside from being as cold-blooded as Samuel L. Jackson's famous "Ezekiel 25"  speech from Pulp Fiction, what's going on here? Well, Hector and Achilles are supposed to be noble warriors, but, when we hear them talk and act like this, we begin to question everything we think we know about our so-called epic heroes.

Plus, all this hungry sword talk shows us how warfare and appetite are linked. Check it out:

The Prologue describes the Greek war ships as bodies that "disgorge" (throw up) their cargo and soldiers on the shores of Troy (Prologue, 12-13). And later, Nestor compares warfare to a giant, gluttonous bird that eats up everything in sight when he says that "honor, loss of time, travail, expense, / Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumed / In hot digestion of this cormorant war (2.2.4-6).

Of course, bloodthirstiness isn't the only kind of dangerous appetite in this play. Check out what we have to say about "Love and Food."

Food

This one's a freebie, Shmoopers. Food = sex. Every time we turn around someone is comparing sex to food. King Priam says that lusty Paris is all about enjoying Helen's "honey" (2.2.144) and Pandarus compares Troilus's desire for Cressida to baking and eating a cake (1.1.14-26).

Even Troilus uses a food metaphor when he tells us that he can't wait to hook up with Cressida. He says the girl's got him salivating because he's always thinking about what it will finally be like to "taste" her sweet "nectar" (3.2.21-22). Okay. We get it Shakespeare. Guys like Troilus and Paris have got big sexual appetites. So what?

Well, eventually, all this sexy food talk turns into something pretty disgusting. Check out what Troilus says when he finds out Cressida's a cheater:

The [...] orts [scraps] of her love,
The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics
Of her o'er-eaten faith, are given to Diomed. (5.2.158-160)

Translation: Troilus thinks Cressida's love is like "bits of greasy" food that's been eaten and then puked back up. Or, to put it as crudely as Shakespeare does, Troilus is saying that Diomedes is getting his "sloppy seconds."

Um. Gross. Why is Shakespeare trying to make us sick with all this food talk gone wrong? Well, it seems like there's a point being made about the folly of Troilus' feelings for Cressida. When he talks about her as though she's a delicious slice of this, that, or the other thing, it's pretty obvious that his so-called "love" for her is nothing more than sexual desire. He doesn't actual

Disease and Illness

"Ulcer of my heart." "Plague of Greece." "Jaundies." "Botchy core." "Scab." "Colic." "Neapolitan bone-ache."

Grab your hazmat suits, Shmooperinos, because there's more puss, blood, and body fluids oozing through this play than a wounded soldier's open "gash." Gross? Yep. But don't get mad at us. Shakespeare's the one who crams this drama full of disease, decay, and death. Let's kick off our discussion with some famous examples:

• Troilus declares that his love for Cressida has left him with an "open ulcer [in his] heart" (1.1.53).
• The Greek military leaders declare that their army is "infect[ed]" with a kind of moral "sickness" and lack of respect for authority (1.3.5-8; 101-102; 140-141).
• Thersites imagines what it would be like if Agamemnon had a bunch of nasty boils and running sores all over his body (2.1.2-9).
• Thersites wishes the entire Greek army would get the "Neapolitan bone-ache!" (a.k.a. syphilis) because they're willing to fight a war over a promiscuous woman (2.3.17).
• Pandarus tells us he's dying of a sexually transmitted disease (we're guessing syphilis) and that he hopes we all get an STD and die (5.10.35; 55-56).

What the heck is going on here? According to some literary critics, Troilus and Cressida is chock full of nasty disease because Shakespeare himself suffered from syphilis and was obsessed with STD symptoms (source). Okay. Even if we could prove this, which we can't, it doesn't help us with our analysis of the text. What we need to figure out is how Troilus and Cressida's references to disease and sickness affect our experience and understanding of the play. Here are a couple of our favorite theories:

When Shakespeare loads the play with references to disease, decay, and death, he establishes the idea that the whole world (or at least the world of the play) is a corrupt place that's full of moral decay. Come to think of it, this is a lot like what we see in plays like Hamlet, where Hamlet runs around saying that the world is like a "rank" (i.e. nasty and stinky) garden that's full of disease and rot. We talk about this more in "Setting."

Plus, the constant references to sexually transmitted diseases basically spit in the face of true love. It's hard to take Troilus and Cressida's love declarations seriously with all the play's talk about the "Neapolitan bone-ache," don't you think? And, in case you hadn't noticed, the whole play has a pretty pessimistic attitude toward love.

But, hey, what do you expect from a playwright who named a character in King Lear after a nasty sexually transmitted disease? (We're looking at you, Gonorrhea—we mean, Goneril.)

Troilus's Sleeve

Just before Troilus and Cressida are separated after their first night together, they exchange love tokens. (Aw. How sweet!) Cressida gives Troilus her glove and Troilus gives Cressida his sleeve as the two lovebirds promise not to cheat on each other (4.4.69-71). And, no, the sleeve isn't still attached to Troilus' shirt, but it's probably really fancy and has lots of embroidered embellishments.

This is a chivalry thing, kids. Knights often wore their ladies' "favors" (a.k.a. scarves, veils, handkerchiefs, etc.) when they jousted or went into battle. And, yeah, we know this play technically goes down in ancient Troy, but Shakespeare is writing Troilus like a throwback to those chivalric medieval knights we've all read about.

So, the love tokens are supposed to symbolize the couple's love and commitment to one another, right? But, of course, Cressida betrays Troilus about a nanosecond later when she promises to become Diomedes' lover. Just in case we don't get what a traitor she is, Shakespeare has her give Troilus' sleeve to her new man… while Troilus watches from a hiding spot (5.2.66). Ouch.

Not only that, but Diomedes brags that he's going to wear the sleeve on his helmet the next day in battle just to taunt the guy who gave it to Cressida in the first place (5.2.92-93). Double ouch.

In the end, the sleeve becomes a big, glaring symbol of Cressida's sexual infidelity. Does this sound kind of familiar? Shakespeare does something similar with the infamous handkerchief in Othello. Othello gives Desdemona his handkerchief as a symbol of his love, which then gets stolen and winds up in the possession of another man. Well, Othello sees the handkerchief as evidence that his wife's a cheater, even though she is most definitely not.

Here, though? The girl's totally cheating. There's a perfect match between the thing (the sleeve) and the thing it symbolizes (the infidelity).