Any final conclusions on a Shakespearean drama are a tentative matter at best. His greatest plays are complex entities, full of subtle meaning. This is particularly evident with regard to Troilus and Cressida. While earlier generations tended to see the play as flawed, modern critics have occasionally viewed the play as structured in a deliberate confusion. 77 Thus Arnold Stein defined the play as "a dramatic form of the disjunctive imagination," while Una Ellis -Fermor saw "discord as the central theme" reflected in "a deliberately intended discord of form also." 78 Shakespeare achieved this discord through a particular use of anticlimax, which as McAlindon observes, combines with the language of the play to create an intense "dissonant effect."79 Yet the argument that informs the preceding discussion of Troilus and Cressida is founded on the idea that Shakespeare's plays, and most particularly this one, contain a coherent teaching on politics that it is worthwhile to uncover. If the play is an exercise in dissonance and disjunction, as it undoubtedly is, then what teaching, beyond the idea that anarchy in souls and cities breeds chaos, can possibly emerge?
Our problem, is first, to understand how Shakespeare's rhetorical strategies meshed with his dramatic techniques. In a recent book, Joel Altman has discussed the relation of Tudor rhetoric to dramatics. 80 He argues that to fully understand Elizabethan drama, we need to comprehend the great heritage of the rhetorical tradition. This was the concept of sophistic rhetoric, of arguing in utramque partem, on both sides of the question. One of the great debates surrounding Troilus and Cressida has been whether Shakespeare was pro-Trojan and anti-Greek, as tradition would have it, or vice-versa, or indeed sympathetic to neither side. If we follow Altman's suggestions, then is it not possible that Shakespeare is indeed arguing on both sides of the question here, that he gives his audience reasons to support and condemn both sides simultaneously? 81
Furthermore, we might ask if the dissonance noticed by critics is founded in Shakespeare's desire to negate any simple attachment to one position or the other? If Shakespeare is indeed arguing on both sides of the questions evoked by this strange play, then it seems evident that he is challenging his audience to come to their own conclusions. A determination of the Shakespearean teaching would, therefore, seem to be dependent on the questions that we ask of the play.
Our discussion of the play has concentrated on the three deliberative scenes. The reason for this is to elucidate the political philosophy that anchors the war. Yet there is another reason for this procedure; the deliberative scenes are the scenes of the polis, and following the procedure of the Republic, treating the city as the soul writ large, we may be able to discover a framework within which to understand Shakespeare's political teaching. This does not mean that a discussion of the regimes is not subject to the same problems elucidated in the dialogue; however, it is a basis for a beginning. 82
In a discussion of A Midsummer Night's Dream, John Vyvyan notes Hippolyta's comment that the confusions of the night have grown "to something of great constancy. " In answer to the question of what this thing of constancy is, Vyvyan answers that it is beauty. 83 Vyvyan's argument hinges on a reading of Shakespeare in light of the neo- Platonic influence of the Renaissance thought of as the ascent of love to pure beauty. While A Midsummer Night's Dream is surely the antithesis of Troilus and Cressida, it is interesting to note the many appeals to constancy in the latter play. Troilus is pictured in the first scene as a divided man, the very figure of inconstant desires. Cressida is also divided on whether to be constant to her own understanding of the truth of love, or to give herself to Troilus and thus lose her feminine power. Constancy is brought into the political arena when Troilus demands that the hesitant Trojan council remain constant to their original decision. In the Greek camp, Agamemnon is inconstant, unsure whether the Greek enterprise should be dependent on the resolve of men or the whims of fortune. Achilles' inconstancy is delineated in his dialogue with Ulysses. He is not sure whether the demands of love or of nobility should order his decision. And in these vacillations Shakespeare reveals a most profound understanding of the passions that rule most men's souls.
For the ancient Greeks, questions of the noble and the beautiful were intertwined. This is evident in the fact that one word, kalos, could serve to designate both beauty and nobility. Troilus and Cressida is a play in which the major characters continually try to come to grips with kalos, in all the complexity that the classical term infers. Helen's beauty is itself sufficient reason to continue the war, while the grounds of nobility, whether it is autonomous or not, are debated throughout the play. It is in Troy that the questions of beauty and nobility are most prominent. The noble is not simply the idea of honour, yet it is in reference to honour that most discussion occurs.
Troilus speaks first of "the worth and honour of a great king" later declaring that Helen is a theme of honour and renown. Late in the play Hector declares that "mine honour keeps the weather of my fate, " implying that honour is the chief determinate of his life. (5.3.26) In the Greek camp Achilles declares that "Fortune and I are friends" but learns that Ajax will fight Hector and, in Patroclus' words, "perhaps receive great honour by him. " (3.3.225)
The regime described in the Republic that corresponds most closely to Troy is timocracy. Socrates says that it is distinguished by "one thing alone" that is, in fact, a pair: love of victories and of honours. 84 Yet, as Socrates shows, the timocratic man is an especially complex lover. 85 Hector is portrayed as both a lover of honour and a lover of victory; Troilus is a lover of speeches and of glory; Paris is the ultimate lover, a lover of honour and of beauty. Just as in the Republic where the honour of the timocratic man is complex due to his many loves, complex too is the honour presented in Troilus and Cressida because it means so many things to different people.
Nobility, in Renaissance thought, was the idea of virtue and moral worth, as well as the inheritance of noble blood. Honour was hence a component of nobility and not an equivalent. This is why the questioning of what constitutes honour implies a questioning of the status of nobility. When Troilus scorns Hector for measuring "the worth and honour of a great king . . . with fears and reason s," he is asserting the autonomy of the noble, that it exists beyond the sphere of utilitarian calculation. Yet the ambiguous status of the noble in Troy is evident in the importance attached to questions of value. What does Troy value? In Troilus' opinion it is constancy. That constancy was considered as but one component of nobility is clear in Elyot's Boke Named the Gouverner, often ascribed by scholars as one of Shakespeare's sources for Troilus and Cressida.86 Elyot states that "severity . . .magnanimity . . . constancy . . . honour . . . sapience . . . continence . . . Do express or set out the figure of very nobility; which in the higher estate it is contained, the more excellent is the virtue in estimation."87
By this understanding, we see that Troilus' argument for the council's fidelity to their original decision is a plea to affirm their nobility. As Troilus' argument prevails, whether through Hector's acquiescence or not, we view the ascendancy of the timocratic ideal. Are we to think that the defeat of Troy is but the defeat of honorable ideals before the superior power of the Greeks? This is one reading of the play; however, there is evidence within the play itself that Shakespeare intended a more subtle critique of these youthful timocrats. Socrates states in the Republic that over time the timocratic man is likely to degenerate into a lover of wealth .88 While this is but one of the many corollaries between Shakespeare's depiction of the Trojan regime and the Platonic commentary on timocracy, it seems particularly apt. We have already noted Troilus' uses of the language of commerce to describe both his desire for Cressida and the Creek response to the abduction of Helen. 89 The language of commerce is that of buying and selling, of acquisition and gain. While this perhaps reveals the inner nature of the timocratic soul, this propensity to acquire is not more striking than if we consider the abduction of Helen. The Trojan expedition to Sparta was conceived, as we are told, out of a desire to revenge themselves of the Greeks. Yet was not the end result of Paris' mission the replacement of one woman with another of greater value?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
..It was thought meet
Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks;
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.
And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive
He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo's and makes stale the morning.
(2.2.72-79)
It would seem that the romantic notion of the Trojan War is severely thrown into doubt with this one statement. When this is added to the comments of Diomedes and Thersites, we begin to see that for all its stress on noble deeds, the Trojan position is founded in common acquisitive longings. This is not to state that Shakespeare unequivocally condemns the Trojans. Part of the ambiguity of the play is that we are both repulsed by and attracted to both sides. Hector is surely the epitome of nobility and when Achilles orders his Myrmidons to slay him, he dies like a butchered animal, victim of a moral code that is not shared by his enemies. The irony of that final scene is, of course, the fact that Hector has laid down his weapons and is resting after chasing down and killing "one in sumptuous armor, " as the stage direction puts it.
Perhaps this is the image of the play: the one in sumptuous armor reveals a putrefied core. One last time Shakespeare brings forth the theme of appearance and reality in order to show the divergence between the two. The death of Hector should cause the auditor of the play to hearken back to the scurrilous railing of Thersites and the simpering Pandarus for proof that something is amiss in a world that speaks so nobly of its ambitions while its heroes fall like cows before the butcher.
Yet we must keep in mind the moral quandary that has been presented to us. The Trojan War has begun out of a desire for revenge, but as Bacon aptly put it " revenge is a kind of wild justice." 90 In their desire to redress the insult to their honour that the kidnapping of Hesione effected, the Trojans have initiated a reciprocal Grecian desire for revenge. Helen is no longer an equivalent exchange for Hesione; due to her beauty her value is greater than that of Hesione. The possession of Helen is "a theme of honour and renown." Her defence has been symbolized into the raison d'être of Troy; the service is greater than the god.
This is the Trojan paradox that Shakespeare presents to us. Our hypothesis that the survival of the polis is the primary concern is defeated by the rule of the lovers of honour. In their desire to win honour and glory, the idea of the common good is discarded. Troilus and Paris show by their speeches that they care nothing for politics. The pursuit of honour allows reason to be sundered from the good. The paradox being that the natural warrior, on whom the defence of the city rests would risk the survival of the city for the sake of glory. The fate of Troy is sealed by a lack of political authority that can restrain the passions of the warrior with discipline and moderation. Although the situation differs, the end of Troy will come in that chaos prophesized in Ulysses' speech on degree.
As for the Greeks, Shakespeare presents another paradox of deficient regimes. If the problem of Troy is that reason has been sundered from the good in their political deliberations, the Grecian problem can be understood in light of the effects of sundering wisdom from reason. As Ulysses correctly observes, the rule of political authority has been eroded in the Greek camp. His speech is a model of cool rationality, the ends of the expedition are never in doubt; there is no debate on the moral authority of their course. Only Thersites and Diomedes offer criticism of the war itself. Achilles' (and later Ajax's) rebellion originates in the strategic considerations that have caused the impetus of the war to falter. Reason is present in the Greek deliberations but, as Agamemnon and Nestor show us, it is a reason that would never dare, that would lie obedient to the shifting favors of fortune. Hence one paradox of the play is that Achilles, the Grecian lover of honour, is in rebellion against his commander, criticizing his strategic ineptitude. While the matter of Achilles' love for the Trojan Polyxena is one explanation for his recalcitrant behaviour, given his concern for reputation and honour, it is difficult to see this affair as "sufficient" reason to keep him from the war.
Our discussion has already noted the tinge of moral relativism within Ulysses' speech, and its subtle difference from the traditional Elizabethan world picture. It remains, by way of conclusion, to offer some thoughts on why Shakespeare presented Ulysses in this manner. On the one hand, we have yet another presentation of the `wily Odysseus' of legend; however, what is particularly prescient in Shakespeare's presentation is just how much Ulysses epitomizes the Machiavellian position. Shakespeare appears to be saying that when political authority is weak, men like Ulysses will arise to fill the void. Cultivated and deferential, possessed of both political and cosmic vision, they nevertheless prosper through fraud, manipulation, and the creation of images. Unlike the Homeric Odysseus, Shakespeare's Ulysses is never once mentioned as a warrior, as possessing martial skill. He is crafty and devious, and most importantly, he is the power behind the throne. Indeed, his greatest image is the analogy of cosmos and polis that he presents to Agamemnon, an analogy that closer examination must reveal as false. The planets do not "in evil mixture to disorder wander. " But the image is striking and remains.
Hence, we might agree with the judgments of the critics who deem Troilus and Cressida to be "amazing and modern," although, perhaps not for the same reasons. It is difficult to simply view the play as anti-war. As we have seen the justifications to either abandon or to continue the war are complex. Shakespeare's critique of Trojan and Greek can be discovered in the reason that places honour over the good and reason over wisdom. The modernity of the play is revealed in the person of Ulysses. He might be best understood as a seventeenth century precursor of that particular phenomenon of the twentieth century: the professional politician. Ulysses, with his plots and stratagems, reflects our belief in the efficacy of reason and the malleability of man, that human action can be predicted and controlled; however, Shakespeare's final irony is to show that the mastery of fortune is not an exact science. As moderns, we tend to believe that all things can be logically explained, thus, when we confront a play like Troilus and Cressida, in which logic is either flawed or absent, we become confused and call it `enigmatic'. The results of our assumptions are themselves predictable, as Frederick Kiefer has observed:
Just as prevailing assumptions about
the efficacy of
reason shape our taste in popular literature, so too
they color our reading of literature written long
ago. Thus we tend to look for motives, rationales,
causes. In reading tragedy we expect to find a
direct connection between a person's deeds and
his predicament; we look for foibles and seize
upon "tragic errors"; find most congenial the
play that depicts the operation of retributive
justice.91
Kiefer's point about retributive justice is particularly apt with respect to Troilus and Cressida. Shakespeare quite clearly describes the origins of the war in a desire for vengeance; the Greeks kidnap Hesione; the Trojans kidnap Helen; the Greeks besiege and extinguish Troy. This is retribution in full but as the play points out, things are not quite this simple. To explain the actions of the heroes is not something that can be easily accomplished; Shakespeare has imbued his Greeks and Trojans with all the complexities that attend human beings. We may see the war as the exemplification of a retributive justice but this cannot satisfactorily explain why the heroes fight and die. Shakespeare is equally critical of both Trojan and Greek. Despite their many admirable qualities, any regime which overvalues honour, which divorces reason from the common good, or like the Greeks, overvalues reason and reduces it to instrumental technique, without any consideration of the wisdom to which reason should aspire is deficient. Yet nobility and wisdom remain the main foundations of a good regime, and in the play Shakespeare shows us the necessity of their presence in political life.