The husband whose wife had fooled him was universally viewed with amused contempt in Shakespeare's time. This attitude arose, perhaps, from the conventions of courtly love, (see page I-54) where the knight was, ideally, supposed to love the wife of another. In all such tales, the husband was the villain (witness the well-known romance of Tristan and Iseult) and the audience cheered when the horns were, so to speak, placed on his forehead.
The betrayed husband was therefore an inexhaustible theme for comedy and any mention of horns or horned animals, even any reference to foreheads, was the signal for laughter-and Shakespeare made the most of that.
Thus it is that Troilus scorns poor wronged Menelaus. To modern ears, which do not find adultery either as serious or as comic as the Elizabethans did, such jests fall flat.
The scene shifts to Cressida now. She enters with her servant, Alexander, looking after two women who have hastened by. She inquires who those were who passed and Alexander answers:
—Act I, scene ii, line 1b
Queen Hecuba (or Hecabe, in the Greek form) was the second wife of Priam. She bore him nineteen of his sixty-two children, including Hector, Paris, Troilus, and Cassandra of those mentioned so far. Because of her sufferings, she was a favorite character in tragic dramas devoted to the Trojan War and, indeed, in Hamlet Shakespeare makes use of this fact indirectly (see page II-115). Here, in Troilus and Cressida, however, she never appears onstage.
Apparently the two women are hastening to the walls to see the battle, for they fear it may be going poorly. After all, even Hector is perturbed, or as the servant says:
—Act I, scene ii, lines 4-6
Andromache is Hector's wife. The last part of Book Six of the Iliad is devoted to a scene in which she hurries with her infant son, Scamandrius, to meet Hector before he leaves the city on his way to the battle. It is the most touching scene of married love in Homer. Andromache pleads with Hector to stay in the city, for all her own relatives are dead. "So, dear Hector," she says, "you are now not merely my husband-you are father, mother, and brother, too!"
But Hector must go and he reaches out his arms to give his son a farewell and to pray over him, hoping that someday the child's feats will be such that all will agree that "His father was the lesser man!" Alas, it was not to be, for Hector's son was killed when Troy was destroyed.
To make Hector scold Andromache, something most unusual must have happened. Cressida asks what that might be and is told:
—Act I, scene ii, lines 12-14
Ajax plays a great role in the Iliad. He is one of two men in the epic that bears the name. Since the one here referred to is particularly large, he is called "Ajax the Greater." Of the two, only "the Greater" appears in Troilus and Cressida, so it suffices to call him Ajax.
In the Iliad Ajax is the strongest of the Greeks, save only for Achilles, but is considerably more renowned for his strength than for his subtlety. He is never wounded in the Iliad, and he is the only important hero who never at any time personally receives the help of a god or a goddess. He is the epitome of success through hard work, without inspiration.
He is not, in the Iliad, of Trojan blood; nor is he a nephew to Hector. The attribution of Trojan blood to Ajax is probably the result of confusion with Ajax's half brother (see page I-103).
Alexander goes on to describe Ajax and makes him out to be a parody of the picture presented in Homer; as nothing more than a stolid, dim-witted man-mountain. He says of Ajax:
—Act I, scene ii, lines 29-30
Briareus was an earthborn monster with fifty heads and a hundred arms. The most important myth in which he figured was one in which the tale of a revolt against Jupiter is central. The other gods, led by Neptune and Apollo, succeed in binding Jupiter, and he might have been overthrown, but for the action of a sea nymph, who hastily brought Briareus to the rescue. The monster untied Jupiter and by his presence cowed the other gods.
As for Argus, he was a monster with a hundred eyes who was sent by Juno (Hera) in order that he might watch the nymph Io. Io had been one of Jupiter's many loves, and that god had turned her into a heifer to hide her from Juno, but unsuccessfully. Argus' vigilance (his eyes never closed in unison; fifty at least were always open and alert) would prevent Jupiter from ever turning Io back into human form.
Jupiter sent Mercury (Hermes) to the rescue. Mercury lulled Argus to a simultaneous hundred-eyed sleep with a soothing lullaby and then cut off his head. Juno placed Argus' many eyes in the tail of her favorite bird, the peacock.
Alexander's description of Ajax, in other words, is that of a man who has all the physical attributes required for a warrior but who lacks the intelligence to make those attributes work for him.
And, apparently, what bothers Hector is that this mule of a man has struck him down. Hector cannot help but feel the shame of it.
Pandarus arrives on the scene and at once begins busily to praise Troilus, hoping to arouse Cressida's ardor. Cressida, who knows exactly what he is doing, teases him unmercifully by never allowing his praises to stand but turning everything on its head.
Soon the men are returning from the field at the close of the day, and Pandarus decides to let Troilus' own appearance do the talking. He leads Cressida to a place where she can see them, continuing to promise her Troilus, but naming the others as they pass.
Aeneas passes first and is praised, of course. (Aeneas is always praised-he must be.) Then comes another, and Pandarus says:
—Act I, scene ii, lines 197-99
In the Iliad Antenor was one of the elders of Troy. He was a councilor of Priam and a man of good judgment, as Shakespeare says, but far too old to fight. There is undoubtedly confusion here with Agenor, his son, who in the Iliad plays an important role as a Trojan warrior.
Pandarus' fussing becomes funnier and funnier. Hector and Paris pass and he praises them with forced enthusiasm, but keeps watching for Troilus and growing constantly more upset because Troilus doesn't appear.
When Cressida asks the name of one of the passing warriors, Pandarus answers absently:
—Act I, scene ii, lines 227-29
Helenus was another son of Priam and Hecuba,, and, according to some accounts, a twin brother of Cassandra. He was likewise blessed with the powers of a soothsayer and was a priest. He was the only one of Priam's sons to survive the fall of Troy (perhaps because of his priestly character) and in the end, according to some of the later tales, married Andromache, Hector's widow. Together they ended their lives ruling over Epirus, a district in northwestern Greece.