Troilus and Cressida: Act V

V.1.37 When Shakespeare says purse, he always means something else . . .

V.i.74 I really liked this soliloquy, and wish it had taken place earlier. It gives the reader a place to file everybody.

V.i.94 Ulysses just keeps getting better as a character. Here he not only shows discernment, but virtue as well.

V.i.98 Thersites occupies an interesting place here as proxy for the audience. He executes our own voyeuristic desires.

V.ii.19 And here we are peeping at a peeper peeping at two peepers.

V.ii.109 If it is really Diomedes' appearance that has swayed Cressida, then the description of her as half of a pair of spectacles in Act IV becomes significant. Could she really be so shallow? If so, she is unique among Shakespeare's smarter heroines . . .

V.ii.133 and Thersites' meaning seems to be "Can he fool himself out of what he has seen?" Agaiin tying up the idea of mirrors and spectacles. I think I've found the idea that unlocks this play.

V.iii.1 And here's a nice complement to it: in the last scene, an opposition was set up between eyes and ears. Just as there Troilus and Cressida both in their ways wanted to stop their eyes, here Hector is on the other side of the equation.

V.iii.16 The gods are not deafer than Hector, though.

V.iii.38 Is Hector, then, the backward facing lion of act IV?

V.iii.87 Now that I have uncovered it, it is everywhere: ears can be stopped, but eyes cannot. HEctor will not hear his sister, nor his wife, but they cannot help but see the most terrible of visions.

V.iv again is Thersites our proxy

V.v.1-4exeunt pursued by a bear, so to speak. Does the action really take place offstage, between scenes? blech.

V.v.39 Or is Diomedes up to some sort of trick? Troilus does not seem "chastised" in these lines . . .

V.viii.1-4 what a lovely moment. How different Hector is from his foil!

And what a weird ending. I thought Troilus was supposed to drown at the end or something like that. Yeesh.