Troilus and Cressida (c1602). Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. It was described by Frederick S. Boas as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The play ends on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between Troilus and Cressida. The work has in recent years stimulated exceptionally lively critical debate. Throughout the play, the tone lurches wildly between bawdy comedy and tragic gloom, and readers and theatre-goers have frequently found it difficult to understand how one is meant to respond to the characters. Several characteristic elements of the play have often been viewed as distinctly modern, as in the following remarks on the play by author and literary scholar Joyce Carol Oates: Troilus and Cressida, that most vexing and ambiguous of Shakespeare's plays, strikes the modern reader as a contemporary document-its investigation of numerous infidelities, its criticism of tragic pretensions, above all, its implicit debate between what is essential in human life and what is only existential are themes of the twentieth century. This is tragedy of a special sort-the tragedy the basis of which is the impossibility of conventional tragedy. The Greeks Agamemnon, King of the Greeks and leader of the Greek invasion. Achilles, prince. Ajax, prince. Diomedes, prince. Nestor, wise and talkative prince. Ulysses, King of Ithaca. Menelaus, King of Sparta, brother to Agamemnon. Helen, wife to Menelaus, living with Paris. Thersites, a deformed and scurrilous low-class fool. Patroclus, protege of Achilles. Troilus and Cressida is set during the later years of the Trojan War, faithfully following the plotline of the Iliad from Achilles' refusal to participate in battle, to Hector's death. Essentially, two plots are followed in the play. In one, Troilus, a Trojan prince, woos Cressida, another Trojan. They profess their undying love, before Cressida is exchanged for a Trojan prisoner of war. As he attempts to visit her in the Greek camp, Troilus glimpses Diomedes flirting with his beloved Cressida, and decides to avenge her perfidy. While this plot gives the play its name, it accounts for only a small part of the play's run time. The majority of the play revolves around the leaders of the Greek and Trojan forces, Agamemnon and Priam, respectively. Agamemnon and his cohorts attempt to get the proud Achilles to return to battle and face Hector, who sends the Greeks a letter telling them of his willingness to engage in one-on-one combat with a Greek soldier. Ajax is originally chosen as this combatant, but makes peace with Hector before they are able to fight. Achilles is prompted to return to battle only after his protege Patroclus is killed by Hector before the Trojan walls. A series of skirmishes conclude the play, during which Achilles catches Hector and has the Myrmidons kill him. The conquest of Troy is left unfinished, as the Trojans learn of the death of their hero. The play opens with a Prologue, an actor dressed as a soldier, who gives us the background to the plot, which takes place during the Trojan War. Immortalized in Greek mythology and Homer's Iliad, the war occurs because a Trojan prince, Paris, has stolen the beautiful Helen from her husband, King Menelaus of Sparta, and carries her home to Troy with him. In response, Menelaus gathers his fellow Greek kings, and they sail to Troy hoping to capture the city and reclaim Helen. Within the walls of Troy, Prince Troilus complains to Pandarus that he is unable to fight because of heartache; he is desperately in love with Pandarus's niece, Cressida. Pandarus complains that he has been doing his best to further Troilus's pursuit of his niece, and that he has received small thanks for his labors. After he departs, Troilus remarks that Pandarus has been growing irritable lately.