Bard to the Bone explained here.
The play: Troilus and Cressida
Year written: 1602
Context of the writing (Shakespeare’s career, political events it was responding to): the forever war against the Irish was dragging on, and this is an “anti-war” play about the futility and banality of it all (causes, characters etc). Apparently you can read Achilles as Essex, one of Queen Elizabeth’s favourites who had blotted his copy book somewhat in Ireland and ended up rebelling…
Here’s the wikipedia , which doesn’t currently contain the above, which I actually gleaned from listening to a couple of podcasts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troilus_and_Cressida
Plot in a paragraph: Two Trojans need some Trojans, (insert condom joke) but the Greek siege, with its Big Deaths, gets in the way of their little deaths. Cassandra gets ignored, Achilles kills Hector and you kinda know the rest. It ends with a character telling the audience they all deserve venereal diseases, so there’s that…
Things that worked well: Some great lines! (see below)
Things that didn’t work well: Tonally, all over the place – but maybe that isn’t a problem (play) and is exactly what Bill was aiming for? I am going to come back to this one…
Favourite character
Thersites! An insult for everyone…
To think on
Pandaras and Polonius (hiding behind trees/curtains, advice giving etc)
Words I learnt:
Orgulous – proud
Tortive- twisted, wreathed
Vantbrace – alternative form of vambrace. Vambraces or forearm guards are tubular or gutter defences for the forearm worn as part of a suit of plate armour
Tarre – to urge to action
Caduceus – the caduceus is a symbol of a staff entwined by two snakes, often surmounted by wings. It is traditionally associated with Hermes, the messenger god in Greek mythology. The caduceus is often mistakenly used as a symbol of medicine, but the actual symbol of medicine is the Rod of Asclepius, which features a single snake entwined around a staff.
Emulous- seeking to emulate someone or something, motivated by a spirit of rivalry
Serpigo – s a creeping or spreading skin disease (such as ringworm).
Flexure – the action of bending or curving, or the condition of being bent or curved.
Pheese – a state of edgy or uneasy agitation. vb (tr). to harass or strike (a person)
Tercel – male hawk
Lavolt – An old dance for two people, a kind of waltz in which the woman makes a high spring or bound
Lines worth knowing:
Pandarus to Troilus “He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.”
“All eyes and no sight”
Act 1 scene 3
Ulysses
They tax our policy and call it cowardice,
Count wisdom as no member of the war,
Forestall prescience, and esteem no act
But that of hand. The still and mental parts
205
That do contrive how many hands shall strike
When fitness calls them on and know by measure
Of their observant toil the enemy’s weight—
Why, this hath not a fingers dignity.
They call this bed-work, mapp’ry, closet war;
So that the ram that batters down the wall,
For the great swinge and rudeness of his poise,
They place before his hand that made the engine
Or those that with the fineness of their souls
By reason guide his execution.
Thersites : “Lost in the labyrinth of thy fury”
“Here is such patches, such juggling, such knavery”
Thersites – The elephant has joints but no knees to bow with, its legs are only for walking, not for showing respect.
Act 2 scene 3
Agamemnon
He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed devours the deed in the praise.
And add more coals to Cancer when he burns
The raven chides blackness
Lighter boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep
TROILUS Fears make devils of cherubins; they never see truly.
CRESSIDA
Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds
safer footing than blind reason, stumbling without
fear. To fear the worst oft cures the worse.
Cressida
They that have the voice of lions and the act of hares, are they not monsters?
Act 3 scene 3
ACHILLES
What, am I poor of late?
’Tis certain, greatness, once fall’n out with Fortune,
Must fall out with men too. What the declined is
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
As feel in his own fall, for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings but to the summer,
And not a man, for being simply man,
Hath any honor, but honor for those honors
That are without him—as place, riches, and favor,
Prizes of accident as oft as merit,
Which, when they fall, as being slippery slanders,
The love that leaned on them, as slippery too,
Doth one pluck down another and together
Die in the fall.
Ulysses
“Time hath,my lord, a wallet at his back Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds past,which are devour’d As fast as they are made, forgot as soon as done. “
Let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was,
For beauty, wit, High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity are subjects all
To envious and calumniating Time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin
“Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves”
Cressida “Time, force and death, do to this body what extremes you can”
“And sometimes we are devils to ourselves”
Marc’s entirely subjective verdict and score out of 5 bards (ymmv): idk – 3?
Will I be tracking down movies of this? : yes, no, hell no. – seems a moot point – no movies?
How far would I travel to see a good production of this? An hour? Maybe?
Two limericks about Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida
Of Ajax, Achilles and Hector
We’re given a snarked trifecta
Of Trolly and Cressy?
It gets a bit messy
And “who’s the Victor, eh Vector?”
AND
The problems of Troilus and Cress
Are beyond my skills to address
The shagging is gaudy
The fighting is bawdy
And the tone is a bit lot of a mess.
UPDATE
Podcasts and their contents
Much ado about Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida: Fear and Loathing in Ancient Troy (from 2018)
Nice stuff on Thersites, Essex/Achilles and the forever war in Ireland.
Not true but Useful Series 3, Episode 8
Rather excellent. I especially enjoyed the stuff from about 7 minutes 50 on “tunnels.” Also good on Ulysses “order and hierarchy” speech (it’s NOT Shakespeare’s view) and Pandarus’ speech at the end.
Mythunderstood: A Greek (& other) Mythology Podcast: Trolling Troilus
A snarky fun/funny recap of Troilus the myth and also the play, by two hosts who clearly enjoy their own and each other’s company. Not as good as the other two, but still worth your time, imo.
marchudson.net 
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