A deputation of three, Ajax, Ulysses and Phoenix (the last an old tutor of Achilles), are sent. They offer to return the girl Agamemnon took from Achilles, together with additional rich gifts as compensation for Achilles' humiliation. By now, however, Achilles has so consumed himself with anger that he prefers his grievance to all else and he absolutely refuses.
In the Iliad Achilles puts himself in the wrong at this point, so that in the end he will have to suffer too, as well as Agamemnon and his Greek army. But if Achilles puts himself in the wrong, he does it at least in a grand fashion.
In Troilus and Cressida Achilles can offer nothing but petulance. Ulysses enters the tent and emerges to say that Achilles will not fight. When Agamemnon asks the reason, Ulysses replies:
—Act II, scene iii, line 165
This is mere sulkiness, or, as it turns out later, lovesickness and treason, which is even worse. Shakespeare thus continues his Trojan-biased downgrading of the Homeric picture of the great Greek hero.
It is time for the Greeks to make do without Achilles as best they can, obviously, and they begin to flatter Ajax into accepting the duel with Hector.
Thus, when Agamemnon suggests that Ajax be sent into the tent to plead with Achilles, Ulysses demurs grandiloquently and says that Achilles is not worth so great an honor as having a man like Ajax demur to him:
—Act II, scene iii, lines 197-99
Hyperion (the sun, see page I-11) makes a complete round of the sky against the background of the stars in the course of one year. The stars in its path are divided into twelve constellations, which, all together, make up the Zodiac. (This is from a Greek phrase meaning "circle of animals" because so many of the constellations are visualized as animals.)
On June 21 the sun enters the sign of Cancer (the Crab) and summer starts on that day. Ulysses refers to summer heat in the notion of Cancer burning because of the entry of great Hyperion. Ajax kowtowing to Achilles would but make summer heat hotter; that is, it would make proud Achilles prouder.
The flattery grows grosser and grosser and Ajax, delighted, accepts it all. Ulysses says, in praise of Ajax:
—Act II, scene iii, lines 247-49
Milo was an athlete of Croton, a city on the coast of the Italian toe, whose feats of strength had grown legendary. The most famous tale was that he lifted a particular calf onto his shoulders every day. It grew heavier with age, of course, and finally Milo was lifting a full-grown bull. This was the reason for his addition (that is, tide) of "Bull-bearing," a title which, Ulysses was saying, he would now have to yield to Ajax.
This is another anachronism, of course, almost as bad as the one about Aristotle. Milo was not a myth but an actual historical figure (though the stories about him might be exaggerated, to be sure). He died about 500 b.c., seven centuries after the Trojan War.
Ajax is now thoroughly softened up and has played the scene as an utter puppet in the hands of Ulysses. This is completely unclassical, for Ajax is a truly heroic figure in the Iliad and was viewed as a sympathetic and tragic figure in later tales. Partly this was because he was considered an Athenian, for he was from the small island of Salamis, which, in the century when the Iliad was edited into its final form, had just been annexed by Athens.
Yet there is an echo of the classic too. After Achilles' death there was a competition for his armor, which narrowed down to Ulysses and Ajax. Ulysses won out and Ajax, in grief and shame, went mad. Ajax, it would seem, in one way or another, is always at the mercy of Ulysses.
This part of the task done, Ulysses now suggests that Agamemnon call a council of war, at which the arrangement to put up Ajax against Hector be completed. He says:
—Act II, scene iii, lines 260-62
It would not have been reasonable to suppose that the city of Troy, all by itself, could have withstood a huge expeditionary force of a united Greece. Rather, it stood at the head of a large combination of forces itself. The tribes of Asia Minor stood with it and one of the most prominent Trojan heroes in the Iliad was Sarpedon, a prince of Lycia in southwestern Asia Minor, some three hundred miles south of Troy. He does not appear in Troilus and Cressida, but Pandarus, who does, is also a Lycian-at least in the Iliad.
In Book Ten of the Iliad, immediately after the unsuccessful deputation to Achilles, there is, indeed, the tale of a new reinforcement of the Trojans. This is Rhesus, a Thracian king who has led both men and horses to the aid of the Trojans. Thrace is in Europe, to be sure, but it lies to the northeast of Greece and was inhabited by non-Greeks. (Nor did it ever become Greek in the future. It is the region that makes up the modern kingdom of Bulgaria.)
In the Iliad Ulysses and Diomedes sneak into the Trojan camp under the cover of night and assassinate Rhesus, nullifying the effect of his reinforcement, but nothing of the sort takes place in Troilus and Cressida. The reference to fresh kings coming to Troy is all that is left.
As Act Three opens, Pandarus has finally made arrangements to bring Troilus and Cressida together for a night and has come to Priam's palace to persuade Paris to cover for Troilus, so that no one may suspect where the young prince is.
This gives Shakespeare a chance to place Helen herself on stage-in one scene only.
In the Iliad Helen's beauty is made overwhelming. All are victims of it and all are affected by it. Homer places her praise, with exceeding effectiveness, in the mouths of the old men of Troy, showing that even impotent age feels the influence. He says:
"At Helen's approach, these grey-beards muttered earnestly among themselves. 'How entrancing she is! Like an immortal goddess! Yes, marvellously like one! I cannot blame the Trojans and Greeks for battling over her so bitterly!'"
And Helen is her own victim too. She is conscious of herself as the cause of immense misery; she is contrite and ashamed, and, in the same scene referred to above, she says to Priam:
" 'I ought to have died before eloping with Prince Paris-imagine, leaving my home, my family, my unmarried daughter, and so many women friends of my own age! But leave them I did, and now I weep for remorse… Oh, I am a shameless bitch, if ever there was one.'"
Furthermore, Helen is intelligent and in the Odyssey, when, ten years after the fall of Troy, she is once again the wife of Menelaus and the two are entertaining the son of Ulysses in their home, Helen is clearly more quick-witted than her husband.
But how does Shakespeare present Helen in the one scene in which she appears? She appears as a vain, silly woman, with an empty head, unaware of (or uncaring about) what she has caused, and incapable, apparently, of making an intelligent remark.
Helen scarcely allows Pandarus the chance to make his arrangements with Paris and insists he sing for her, saying: