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Act 1, Scene 2
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Troilus and Cressida, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
War
Love and Selfishness
Honor
Commodification of Women
Fate and Fortune
Summary
Analysis
In the Greek camp, Agamemnon holds a war council. The war has come to a stalemate and every offensive by the Greeks seems to be thwarted by divine intervention. It is, Agamemnon declares, a trial set by Jove to test the Greeks’ resolve and mettle. Nestor agrees that difficult times prove people’s characters.
Ulysses effusively compliments Agamemnon and Nestor on their speeches, but he thinks the problem is the shocking lack of discipline among the Greek forces. Humankind isn’t exempt from nature, where laws and hierarchies keep things running smoothly. Likewise, societies can only function well when everyone knows—and respects—their place in the social hierarchy. Not everyone among the Greek forces does that any longer, especially Achilles and his friend Patroclus, who refuse to fight and spend their days mocking their betters, including their general, Agamemnon.
Ulysses disagrees with Nestor’s and Agamemnon’s diagnosis of the problem. This isn’t just bad luck but systemic dysfunction and lack of discipline. Ulysses’s speech is frequently quoted and mined for ideals about society in Shakespeare’s day, with its emphasis on order and hierarchy. But it’s worth paying attention to how Ulysses does—and does not—follow his own ideals here. And his speech also quietly chides Agamemnon’s critical lack of leadership for allowing Achilles and Patroclus to behave so disobediently without punishment in the first place.
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And they’re not alone. Nestor pipes up to complain about Ajax’s similarly inflated sense of self- importance and willingness to second-guess his superiors. Ulysses agrees that both Achilles and Ajax are hot-headed, arrogant, and ignorant of the kinds of strategy necessary to win the war. Nestor goes so far as to say that Achilles’s horse is more valuable to the war effort than the man himself at this point.
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A trumpet heralds the arrival of an envoy from Troy—Aeneas. He praises Agamemnon so effusively that Agamemnon begins to suspect he’s being mocked. But courtesy and etiquette are important in the Trojan court. He’s come to bring a challenge from Hector to any Greek warrior willing to face him in one-on-one combat to determine whose beauty and worth are higher—that of Hector’s wife Andromache or that of the true love of his Greek challenger. Agamemnon is confident that one of his warriors will accept. Indeed, Nestor says, if no one else does, he’ll don his armor and fight for the reputation of Greek women despite his advanced years.
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Agamemnon and the others leave to escort Aeneas through the Greek camp as he announces his challenge, leaving Nestor and Ulysses behind. They discuss the challenge, which is obviously leveled toward Achilles, hands down the strongest fighter among the Greeks. Nestor is confident in Achilles’s ability to win, but he frets that doing so will increase his arrogance and sow further seeds of discord and disobedience among the men. Ulysses proposes that they declare a lottery to pick the challenger, then manipulate it so Ajax wins and gets to fight Hector, thus rebuking Achilles’s arrogance. Nestor thinks this is a marvelous idea.
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