Troilus has emerged triumphant from the council scene. He has moved from being a private critic of the war to its most spirited and forthright public supporter. The difference between the Troilus of the first scene and that of the council scene is too obvious to belabour. Yet this contrast between the private and the public man raises some important questions. Given his initial disdain for the war, we might well ask what have moved him to speak for war in the first place. Since he has fallen deeply in love, the possibility emerges that he wishes to cover himself in glory in order to become more attractive to Cressida. The suggestion is credible when we remember the relationship between love and war throughout the play. If this is true then the desire for glory should become evident in Troilus' initial confrontation with Cressida.
The meeting that Pandarus has worked so diligently for finally comes to its fruition in the third act. Troilus is once again introspective; the passionately intrepid young man of the council scene has been replaced by one fearful of the coming meeting with Cressida. If Troilus has any sense of his rhetorical victory in the council, it now seems lost. Strangely, he equates the prospect of love's consummation with images of death. Pandarus, who was Troilus' "convoy" and "bark" in the first scene, is again invested with a maritime image. This time, however, Pandarus is Troilus' Charon, the mythological ferryman of the dead across the river Styx. Troilus is not thinking of a journey to oblivion, however, but to a paradisal Elysium field. But does Troilus consider love to be a kind of death or a rebirth? Troilus explains his fear as partly due to his anxiety about his ability to appreciate sexual consummation. The possibility that he may soon taste the nectar of love has made him anxious, but he fears the union as much as he anticipates it:
I am giddy. Expectation whirls me
round.
Th' imaginary relish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense. What will it be
When that the wat'ry palate tastes indeed
Love's thrice repured nectar? - death, I fear me,
Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine,
Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness,
For the capacity of my ruder powers.
I fear it much, and I do fear besides
That I shall lose distinction in my joys,
As cloth a battle, when they charge on heaps
The enemy flying.
(3.2.16-27)
These first words reveal in Troilus the same understanding that caused to him rebuke the use of reason in the deliberations of the council. In his last words he alludes to what we have already noticed in Cressida's speech in Act 1: love is like a battle. This scene is replete with words which affirm this connection; Troilus speaks of "battle", of "the enemy", and of "hostages". (3.2.26,27,100) When Troilus calls his love "true as truth's simplicity, " Cressida retorts; "In that I'll war with you. ''(159-161) To this, Troilus responds with words that raise their love-battle to the highest of realms:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 virtuous fight,
When right with right wars who shall be most right!
(161-162)
Although the dialogue between the two lovers is but words, what is discussed
are deeds which are themselves grounded in fear and faith. Indeed, Troilus doubly
fears the coming meeting, as Muir notes; "he fears either that he will die of
an excess of pleasure, or else that he is not sensitive enough to appreciate
it to the full. 73 Upon finally meeting Cressida face to face, this lover of
honour and master of passionate rhetoric can only stammer: "you have bereft
me of all words, lady.'' (151) Pandarus, however, no longer counsels patience:
"Words pay her no debts, give her deeds. " (1 52) Pandarus is now apparently
anxious to see the affair consummated. Cressida tries to keep to her vow of
hiding her love, yet she begins by asserting her hopes for Troilus. She quickly
breaks off, then speaks of her fears. Troilus attempts to assuage her, his own
fears being somehow reduced in comforting her. For Troilus thinks that fear
is a kind of corrupter and promoter of illusion when he says "Fears make devils
of cherubims: they never see/truly." (64-65)
If a cherubim, the creation of a supreme being, fears, then it becomes a devil, the epitome of evil. Cressida said earlier "women are angels, wooing" (1.2.286) and if Cressida is "the beautiful and innocent child"74 that cherubs were believed to be, can we think that Cressida, because she fears, is now evil? The bleak conclusion of their affair lends credence to this suspicion. The traditional understanding of cherubim was that they were of the second order of angels, excelling especially in knowledge. Given this, what Troilus may be suggesting is that fear corrupts knowledge. 75
Cressida then speaks of the necessity of reason in mastering fear:
Blind fear. that seeing reason leads. finds safer
footing than blind reason stumbling without fear. To fear
the worse oft cures the worse.
(66-68)
Prudence, according to Cressida, is thus not simply pure reason; for anticipation
and anxiety stimulate reason. Prudence takes account of fear to make the reasonable
choice, which is to say that it takes its bearing from the passions, especially
what many would regard as the most powerful passion: the fear of violent death.
Hector did not fear the Greeks but only an unknown future; he argued, therefore,
to return Helen. As Troilus in that context denigrated Hector for using reason,
here he denies the existence of anything to fear with respect to love.
O, let my lady apprehend no fear;
in all Cupid's
pageant there is presented no monster.
(69-70)
To this, Cressida ironically asks if there is nothing monstrous either. Troilus' reply is delightfully hyperbolic, but it also critically reveals both his understanding of love and desire, and of will and value.
Nothing but our undertakings, when
we vow to weep
seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking
it harder for our mistress to devise imposition
enough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed.
This is the monstrosity in love, lady - that the will
is infinite and the execution confined;
that the desire is boundless and the act a slave to limit.
(72-78)
Cressida, however, asks if it is not true that "lovers swear more performance than they are able," and even then they can "reserve an ability" that they never fulfill. (79-81) This, for her, is the monstrous thing. Troilus denies knowledge that such promises are ever made, but even if they were, he is not a man who promises anything until merit discovers his worth. The relationship of this to the council scene is, I believe, obvious. There Troilus had promised his full support for the enterprise of war; his infinite will unrestrained by any threat of Greek power, much less their moral claim. Here Troilus avows that he would love ceaselessly; that is the desire of his will. His physical body, however, allows only temporary executions of his will. The desire is boundless but the body has limits. Troilus has conceived of his love in purely physical terms, at least on the level of demonstration. He does not speak of love as a unity of physical and spiritual elements. Yet what has he done in his defence of Helen, the choice of individual wills, but made her the object of spiritual endeavour?
Troilus had begun by demanding that honour required constancy to what the will elected. The full impact of this is revealed in the scene where he observes Cressida's infidelity with Diomedes. (5.2) Troilus can no longer honorably defend this act of his will, and all that is left to him is the hope of revenge, the response that initiated this tragic war.
Cressida's reply to Troilus' confession of boundless desire and physical limit questions the trusting of love's vows. Vows are mere words; the promises that all lovers swear. What is monstrous is that lovers do promise more than they can deliver; their deeds will never, can never, prove equal to their words. With this, Cressida shows that she is fully aware of human being's limitless capacity for false promises. While her words do not disparage her chastity, they do show that she is particularly cognizant of sexual life, of its promises and pitfalls. In one sense, she is considering the physical side of love, but as Muir has noted the "act" Troilus speaks of may say something about both sexuality and human endeavor in general. 76
If Troilus means what he says, then this inability to deliver imparts an ironical meaning to his council speech. If he truly thinks that value does dwell in particular wills, but that "the will is infinite and the execution confined, " then it seems impossible that the will could ever hope to accomplish the execution (the deeds) that his overvalued defense of Helen requires. Troilus' subjective understanding of himself as the creator of all values can only work if he could, in Cressida's case, overcome the physical limits placed on his desire. His separation of physical actions from mental desire, however, makes it impossible for him to attain his desire, for his enterprise could not ever prove successful unless he was able to join the physical and mental capacities together. There is a fatal flaw in Troilus, a lack of appreciation of human limits, rendering him subject to the madness and thirst for vengeance that engulfs the stage by the play's end. At this point, Troilus, like "Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages/And batters down himself. " (2.3.169-170)
To be fair to Troilus, his problem is not, like Achilles', so much a possession of prideful vanity, but rather a youthful spiritedness that has not been tamed by reason. He has ascribed to his own will the power to create reasonable situations, and when those situations betray that presumed reason through an act of another's will, then Troilus' will and his senses divide. The political implications of this type of thinking are readily seen when we recall the council scene. Troilus' claim that the collective will of Troy has approved the defence of Helen as a means to collectively honour her is seriously weakened when the limits of execution of the will's desire are brought out.
Even if the valuation of Helen were never to change (which, however unlikely, is possible since it is subjectively rendered), there is still the possibility that the desire of Troy's collective will will also prove "a slave to limit. " For seven years they have defended the city, but does not the act of war, like the act of love, have limits? As we have seen the crux of the council scene revolves around the desire to defend Helen as an object of immortal honour, while never discussing the idea of victory. The realistic argument regarding war is not touched upon until the closing scenes. Troilus, fully disillusioned by Cressida's infidelity, chides Hector for his "vice of mercy. " Hector's vice is that when he defeats a Greek in battle, he lets them live. Hector calls this "fair play" but Troilus considers it "fool's play. " (5.3.43) Troilus now passionately calls for ruthless war, for total war:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . For
th' love of all the gods,
Let's leave the hermit Pity with our mother;
and when we have our armours buckled on,
The venomed vengeance ride upon our swords,
Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth.
(44-48)
Hector thinks Troilus "savage" for even suggesting this; for Hector remains
true to his chivalric ideal. He is the higher timocrat whose love of honorable
victory is stronger than his love of honour, an honour he receives from enemies
as well as friends. His insistence on "fair play" bespeaks the victory-lover's
desire for untainted victory. This newly discovered realism is the ultimate
response to war; although Troilus remains morally obtuse to the bitter end,
he has now gained enough foreknowledge to see the end of war as the destruction
of enemies. This determination, whether savage or not, is the only way to attain
victory. We have now gone full-circle in Troilus' understanding of war, although
it still remains a personal and subjective understanding. The common good of
the city has never once entered Troilus' deliberations. He is concerned here
with personal vengeance against Diomedes as much for destroying his ideals as
for inheriting his beloved. Even after the death of Hector, with a foreboding
of the fall of troy, all Troilus can do is shift his desire for revenge to Achilles:
Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed;
Sit gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy!
1 say, at once let your brief plagues be mercy,
And linger not our sure destructions on.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And thou great-sized coward,
No space of earth shall sunder our two hates.
I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still,
That moudeth goblins swift as frenzy's thoughts.
Strike a free march to Troy! With comfort go;
Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.
(5.10.6-10,25-31)
Except for the curious epilogue by Pandarus, Troilus' words effectively conclude the play. Courage remains for Troilus, but it is courage based on existential resolution. Shakespeare has brought us to the final pathetic conclusion and Troilus' final words echo the political problem that has run as a thread throughout this play. We began by hypothesizing that this enigmatic play was not simply concerned with an ancient war but with offering a perspective on war generally. In the concluding remarks, I shall attempt to demonstrate the martial issues Shakespeare has dramatized so profoundly.