Written and produced by Olivia Womack
In our first episode, we will analyze Early Modern and Romantic era prints of Cressida, noting how she is isolated in both solo and group prints. We will look at the crux of the debate over Cressida, the mischaracterization of women characters within Troilus and Cressida, and the impact of the sexualization of women actors upon Cressida.
Content warnings for this episode: Discussions of rape, sexual assault, abduction, self-harm, and the sexualization/objectification of women.
Show Script and Notes:
INTRODUCTION:
OW: Cressida’s words in Act III, Scene II ironically prophesize her fate by the end of William Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida. “If I be false or swerve a hair from truth/ when time is old and hath forgot itself… let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood, / as false as Cressid.”[1] The 1602 play takes place seven years into the Trojan War, the ten-year struggle between the Trojans and Greeks features in Homer’s The Iliad. Troilus, a prince, falls in love with Cressida, a Trojan woman before she is exchanged with a prisoner from the Greek camp. When he asks if Cressida will be true to him, Cressida swears it, stating if not, then her name should be a synonym for falseness. Since the play’s first performance, the character of Cressida has been exactly that: a temptress, a whore, a “dirty ho” as one Goodreads user describes her, Cressida has always been the villain of Shakespeare’s text for “deserting” Troilus in favor of the Greek solider, Diomedes.
OW: This critique of her fails to analyze the societal and cultural obligations, rules, and dangers of being an unmarried woman in either Ancient Troy/Greece or Early Modern and Romantic England. It also neglects the influence the men of the play, mainly Pandarus, Troilus, and Diomedes, influence her choices and shape her story. This podcast, False as Cressida , will delve into these topics, juxtaposing the late Elizabethan text with Early Modern and Romantic prints of the play’s characters to argue that, in truth, the characterization of a “false Cressid” is the only thing false about her.
Agenda for Today’s Episode:
OW: Hello and welcome to False as Cressid, where we analyze Early Modern and Romantic era prints of Cressida in Shakespeare’s gendered reception of Troilus and Cressida! My name is Olivia, and I am current senior at the University of Alabama, majoring in English and History, with a minor in Medieval and Early Modern European Studies. For our first episode today, we will be discussing the infamous woman of the podcast, Cressida, as a solo figure. We will compare how Cressida is depicted compared to both men and women characters in Troilus and Cressida, juxtaposing the prints to note how she isolated in both solo and group prints because of her “shameful” decision. Let’s get into it.
BEAT #1- REVELATION
OW: Let us first look at an image that perfectly encapsulates this debate of Cressida’s character. Our first image is Portrait of a Lady in the Character of Cressida.[2] This painting was exhibited by John Opie in 1800 and prints later circulated. The prints depicts Act III, Scene II of the play when Pandarus lifts Cressida’s veil so Troilus can see her face. Pandarus, acting as the pair’s liaison, arranges for them to meet for the first time. This first image perfectly encapsulates the debate surrounding Cressida. Temptress or naïve? Seductress or victim? Opie’s painting argues for both sides of the debate. Pandarus, enmeshed in the shadows, lifts Cressida’s veil, like a bride presented at the altar. She is the center of the image, displayed as an object for both Troilus’ and the audience’s consumption. Cressida is presented in front of her future lover to appeal to the male gaze. Pandarus is the liaison for both parties and yet he does not present Troilus in the same way that he does his niece. Additionally, Pandarus and Troilus are in dark red togas, a color representative of blood and death, while Cressida is dressed in white, a color commonly associated with chastity and virginity. She is presented here by both Pandarus and Opie as a pure blushing maiden (further evidence by her rosy cheeks). Cressida is the picture of chastity, of a devoted and loyal lover.
OW: Troilus gazes at his desired lover not with joy but trepidation. He finally meets with the woman whom he’d urged Pandarus to arrange a meeting with and, when his friend lifts her veil, he looks on pensively. Cressida, on the other hand, looks knowingly at Troilus, as if she understands something he does not. This aspect of the image leans more towards the villanization of Cressida. In this vein, she is a tricky seductress, presenting herself as a chaste maiden while, as the smirk on her face asserts, knows far more than is proper for such a character. Troilus’ expression, then, is one of fear. On some level, he knows that Cressida is deceiving him, and this comes across in his expression. In this reading, Troilus is made to be the victim, not Cressida. He is the one who is abused and will later be betrayed by his lover. With her smirk, it seems as if Cressida is flaunting her future actions, ones she is privy to that Troilus is not.
OW: Let’s look at another example for evidence, Mrs. Cuyler in the Character of Cressida (1785) by J. Thornwaite.[3] The woman playing Cressida is Margaret Cuyler (1758-1814), a Romantic era actor and potential sex worker who performed at Drury Lane. This print is not a depiction of Cressida as a mythological character but a literary one, specifically in Shakespeare’s text as represented upon the stage. This image is of a woman actor playing Cressida, not Cressida herself. The scene depicted in the print is Act IV Scene IV in which Cressida and Troilus exchange love tokens before Cressida is taken to the Greek camp to be exchanged for a Trojan solider. Cressida gives Troilus her glove which she is holding in the print. Again, Cressida’s facial expressions don’t match up to the depicted scene. Here, in this moment with her lover, she does not appear distraught or in any sort of distress. While she and Troilus did arrange to see one another again, it will be much less frequently and under much more constrained circumstances. Instead, again, there is the hint of a smile upon her face. This suggests, similar to Opie’s painting, that Cressida is bestowed with knowledge that the other characters in the text, specifically Troilus, are not. It looks as if she has the omnipotent knowledge that she will betray Troilus for Diomedes when at the Greek camp. She holds the glove daintily within her hands. In my reading of the print, she does not grip it in anxiety or use it to wipe her eyes. It appears as if the glove is a mere present, not a parting gift. Her arms look stiff as she holds out the handkerchief. To me, it looks as if she is performing a tearful farewell to Troilus as Mrs. Cuyler is performing the role of Cressida. She is an actor herself, manipulating both Troilus and the audience which, again, further perpetuates the stereotype of a “false Cressid.” Furthermore, Cressida gifts this token to Troilus who is not in the print with her, though is present in Shakespeare’s writing of this scene. She stands alone, almost as if she is already in the process of “abandoning” Troilus. She looks ahead at the audience rather than Troilus, presuming he is on stage with her in this scene. This action further perpetuates the characterization of Cressida as false and cunning. Though she is parting with her lover, she does not look at him but instead, perhaps, to the future. It seems to me that Cressida’s “villainy” in art and performance was continuously emphasized.
BEAT #2: INTERACTION
OW: Next, we will compare these prints of Cressida to ones of both Helen and Cassandra, the two other prominent women characters in Troilus and Cressida, to highlight a tradition of mischaracterizing, stereotyping, and consequential isolation of women characters. Cassandra is Troilus’ sister, a princess, and one of Priam’s children. The tragedy of Cassandra is that everyone within the text knows she’s been cursed by the god of prophecy, Apollo, and yet, due to that curse, they do not believe her visions. Cassandra sees the fall of Troy, the death of her brothers, the women who will be enslaved by the Greeks for labor and sexual abuse. She also specifically sees her own fate. When Troy falls and the Greeks enter the city of Ilium, Cassandra flees to the temple of the goddess Athena and clings to the statue inside. Ajax, characterized by Shakespeare as a vicious brute, follows her and violently rapes her. Later, Cassandra is taken as a concubine by King Agamemnon.
OW: In Act II Scene II, she tries to warn the men of Troy, including some of her brothers, screaming, “Cry, Trojans, Cry!”[4] She prophesizes the end of Troy and yet her brothers, Hector and Troilus, can only deny her claims.[5] This is the scene depicted in these two prints of Cassandra. In Portrait of Cassandra (1776), a drawing done by John Hamilton Mortimer, Cassandra is seen with a finger pointing in the air and a troubled expression as she foresees the fate of Troy.[6] Her hair is messy to further emphasize her dishevelment and she wears a bandage to cover part of her head. The text even states that she rips out her hair in her distress, so this covering could be to hide such wounds on her scalp. In Cassandra Raving (1795), printed by Francis Legat, she holds a hand on her head and a thoughtful expression.[7] Her expression is pensive, as if she is receiving the prophetic vision (which is amplified by the light casting down from the sun). She holds a small axe in her hand with a large wooden horse and billowing smoke in the background, foreshadowing later in the myth when she approaches the Trojan Horse with an axe as it enters the Trojan walls. These two prints are vastly different. In one, Cassandra is emotionally distressed to the point of self-harm while, in the other, she is first receiving the prophetic vision of the ruin of Troy. This difference highlights an array of representations of women characters, specifically in how artists portray them. Similar to prints of Cressida, these two of Cassandra show how drastically different she is viewed and is portrayed. While there are different scenes depicted, the “mad woman” trope is employed in the first image, rather than the second. In Cassandra Raving, Cassandra has decorations in her hair and a look of awe upon her face. In Portrait of Cassandra, she is undergoing immense emotional distress to the point of self-harm. This portrait looks, to me, to play upon the societal and literary trope of the “mad woman.” As previously stated, Cassandra is not mad but, rather, emotionally traumatized over the destruction she sees in her vision. Rather than detail the weight these visions put on her, the unknown artist plays into this stereotype. Such stereotypes further fuel harmful misconceptions about women characters.
OW: Another example of the wide variety of representations of women characters can be found in another Troilus and Cressida character: Helen. Helen is the wife of King Menelaus of Mycenae and considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris’ kidnapping of her from her husband is the catalyst of the Trojan War, coining her beauty as “the face that launched a thousand ships.” In Helen, Troilus and Cressida (by B. Eyles), she is dressed very modestly, looking into the distance with a garment that covers her shoulders.[8] Other than a flower clasp upon her shoulder, the garment is very plain. Her hair is pinned up around her ears. In Helen, Troilus and Cressida image (by K. Fields), she is dressed in finer clothing and surrounded by symbols of empire: a sword, marble bust, and helmet.[9] Her arms are not covered, and she wears a crown on her head. Helen’s face looks as if it has the smallest hint of a smirk, ever the Trojan princess Paris made her. These strikingly different images of Helen are interesting considering how she is portrayed in Troilus and Cressida. Shakespeare characterizes her as an ordinary woman, rather than the pinnacle of beauty. Helen is constantly referred to, by the men in the play a “whore.” She is portrayed as a snob, selfish and ignorant, rather than the god-like status she’s acquired over centuries. Fields’ image is more in line with this portrayal than Eyles’. I interviewed Dr. Erin Blake, the Senior Cataloguer at the Folger Shakespeare Library about this second print of Helen.
OW: I took a Women: Antiquity to Modernity Class last semester and we talked a lot about the characterization of just Helen as a figure and how she, like Cressida, is often considered the “villain” of the story or at least some sort of femme fatale and I was just curious if this showed up in these prints. Just anything like that, really.
EB: I think you can see a sense of that. It’s the portrait you have of Helen.
OW: Act Three, Scene One.
EB: Sure. That, the she has a pose with her arm up like that.
OW: Yes.
EB: It can be read as a beguiling pose.
OW: As Dr. Blake states, Helen has her arm across her body and is looking over her shoulder. She noticed that the image centered Helen’s breasts, further emphasizing this face that launched one thousand ships. She is, in this image, proud of the war she started. It contrasts with the other image which shows a more modest and, perhaps, remorseful Helen. Is Helen temptress or pawn? Femme fatale. Blushing maiden. As scholar Ajda Bastan writes, “Shakespeare’s feminine characters mirror the Elizabethan era’s image of women; they were to be virtuous and tractable and people that weren’t were delineated as undesirable and even evil.”[10] Since these women Falling short of these two dimensional stereotypes, the roles of women in Troilus and Cressida do not account for the multifaceted, nuanced depths these women characters contain and, therefore, falls short in their characterizations. Cassandra appears in the stereotypical visage of the mad woman in the selected artworks. Helen’s prints, though skewed, highlight the stereotype of the femme fatale. Like Cressida, they are pinned down by a negative archetype. This highlights a pattern of representations of women characters in Troilus and Cressida in a negative light. Cassandra is not mad. Helen had no choice in her abduction. This misrepresentation appears in the art of translation, whether through performance or art. Printmakers then take this translation and amplify it, everlasting in art.
OW: These stereotypes also do not, for the most part, consider sexual violence against women in Troilus and Cressida. Helen is the daughter of Leda, who was turned into a swan by Zeus, was raped by him and bore him four offspring from eggs, including Helen. Not to mention the matter of her abduction by Paris. Cassandra, in her prophetic visions, sees images of her future enslavement and rape by the Greek soldiers. Cressida is sexually assaulted within the text itself, in Act V Scene II in which she is taken to the Greek camp by Diomedes and kissed by a multitude of men there without her consent. Past, future, present, sexual violence is a theme that runs rampant through the play and yet, it is rarely depicted as such in these Early Modern and Romantic prints. Instead, these women are seen as “mad” or are the villains of the story. As scholar Lauren Maguire writes, “Shakespeare may not have had our vocabulary for abuse, but he certainly staged the phenomenon in gender relations in ways affined with twentieth-century sympathies.”[11] I bring this to attention to note how, at least within Troilus and Cressida, the broad mischaracterizations of Cressida, Cassandra, and Helen work in tandem with the blatant refusal to acknowledge their individual sexual traumas. Rather than acknowledge the immense weight of seeing her future assault, Cassandra is depicted as a raving, “mad woman.” Instead of considering whether Helen consented to flee her home to Troy with Paris, (though it varies), she is portrayed as vain and self-important. Similarly, instead of depicting Cressida as a woman desperate for survival in a foreign camp, she is termed “seductress” and “betrayer. If not a misrepresentation, then the refusal to encompass women characters’ multifaceted personalities amplifies this isolation of Cressida.
BEAT #3: REVELATION
OW: Now, we will analyze the tradition of the sexualization of women actors and how it pertains to Cressida. As previously stated, many of the women portrayed in prints and artwork of Cressida in the Early Modern and Romantic periods were actors of the era. It is important to note that while the play had its first performance in 1602/03, it was not until 1660 that any women actors would perform as Cressida. So, for a forty-year period, boy actors would perform this role until the Puritan Interregnum (1642-1660) shut down theaters. It was not until King Charles II returned to England to take the throne that English women were permitted on the public stage. Boy actors were sexualized in the women parts they performed. When women entered the public theater sphere, their treatment was no different. Rather, their bodies and sexuality were further emphasized. Restoration actor Colley Cibber writes that, “The additional objects, then, of real, beautiful women, could not but draw a proportion of new admirers to the theatre.”[12]
OW: Would you say that prints that circulated, were they in equal parts like men and women actors or was it like a skewed demographic or anything like that?
EB: I’m not sure on the particulars but, so for example the actress, you have a couple images of Helen. Those images of Helen that you have, those with the hair over the shoulder. There are others like that that are a series of Shakespeare prints. They would gather together. It was an excuse for publishing pictures of attractive women for people who wanted to buy them.
OW: As Dr. Blake affirms, there was a historical precedence for the sexualization of women actors. Take, for example, this print of Nell Gwyn, a Restoration Actor, titled Nell Gwyn as Venus.[13] Here, she is dressed as the Roman goddess of love, Venus and is in the nude. This print was found in a collection of Samuel Pepys’ and prints, such as these, were known to circulate within the theater community. Scholar Alison Conway writes specifically of Gwyn that writer John Dryden in “the epilogue to Tyrannick Love, or the Royal Martyr, he plays on the conflation of actress and “princess” that the office of royal mistress enabled, as well as Gwyn’s willingness to brand herself “whore.”[14] Conway asserts here that alongside being King Charles II’s mistress, Gwyn’s role as woman actor also correlates to the stereotype of a “whore.”
OW: Here we have a print around thirty years after the one of Nell Gwyn, called Cressida gives Diomedes Troilus’ Love Token (1709).[15] This scene is from Act V Scene II when Diomedes asks for Cressida’s love token given to her by Troilus. She does not look particularly distraught at this action. Rather her facial expression seems to match that of Diomedes beside her, one of smug joy, almost as if it is a feeling of triumph. If looked at closely, it even appears that Cressida is lightly touching Diomedes’ wrist during the exchange. Additionally, like the print of Mrs. Cuyler, which also depicts a love token, Cressida does not grip it in desperation of giving up the only remembrance she has of her former lover, whom she stated that she never wanted to part from. She also does not look afraid. Cressida, an unmarried Trojan woman, is a stranger in the Greek camp. The only person she knows is her father, Calchas, not pictured in the print. Rather, the other figures in the background are more Greek soldiers. They seem jovial, the second figure on the left looking to be pumping his fist and making a whooping noise. All three men appear to be grinning. While they are not written in this scene in Shakespeare’s text, we can infer that their reactions are to the beautiful, isolated Trojan woman whom their fellow solider is attempting to charm. Again, Cressida does not look afraid, though she can surely hear the jeering and crude remarks made by the men behind her.
OW: Their reactions can be exacerbated when considering Cressida’s dress. She is dressed as an Early Modern London sex worker (termed courtesan then) while Diomedes and other men at the Greek camp are dressed in Roman armor. Cressida is, again, isolated within prints due to this sexualization of her character, associating her actions (which could very well be survival tactics to endure in a foreign environment with unknown men). Assumptions of her sexuality is on display without her consent. Alongside the print villainizing sex workers in general, like Helen, Cressida is seen as the villainous harlot who betrayed innocent Troilus as soon as he was no longer in her line of sight. There is no consideration for her struggle to survive within an enemy camp, the exchange a decision she had no input in. Cressida is blamed for adapting to survive and, in this, she is further isolated by being turned into a sex object, much like the women actors who played her.
OW: Therefore, when analyzing Cressida as a solo figure, we see how she is consistently isolated withing Early Modern and Romantic era prints. The nuanced conversation surrounding Cressida as a character is firmly evidenced in both Opie and Thornwaite, isolating her as a character of constant discourse. Prints of both Cassandra and Helen highlight the tradition of mischaracterizing women literary characters which, in turn, exacerbates Cressida’s ostracization. The sexualization of Cressida follows a history of sexualizing women actors dating back to the Restoration era, which further isolates her, given Cressida’s commonly assumed reputation as a seductress. In all of these aspects, Cressida stands out from the rest due to her consistent misrepresented villainization throughout history, which is reflected in Early Modern and Romantic prints.
OW: This episode would not be what it is without the help of many people. Special thanks to Dr. Erin Blake from the Folger Shakespeare Library for speaking with me. Also, thank you to both the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Royal Trust for their public display of catalogues of prints. Thank you to my research advisors, Dr. Tavares and Dr. Jones for their constant guidance with this project. Next week, we will discuss Cressida and her relationship with Pandarus, analyzing how her uncle’s actions, as liaison between her and Troilus, influence Cressida’s reputation as it is today.
[1] Shakespeare, William, Troilus and Cressida, Penguin Random House, 2017, lines 179-190.
[2] Opie, John, Portrait of a Lady in the Character of Cressida. 1804, Folger Shakespeare, Washington D.C, https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img27163.
[3]Thornthwaite, J. Mrs. Cuyler as Cressida. 1785, Folger Shakespeare, Washington D.C, https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img21549.
[4] Shakespeare, William, Troilus and Cressida, Penguin Random House, 2017, line 99.
[5] Shakespeare, William, Troilus and Cressida, Penguin Random House, 2017, lines 113-129.
[6] Romney, George. Cassandra Raving. 1795, The Met Museum, New York. https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img29808.
[7] Portrait of Cassadra. 1740-1779, Folger Library, Washington D.C, https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img36258.
[8] Fields, K. Helen, Troilus and Cressida. 1800-1860, Folger Library, Washington D.C, https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img27188.
[9] Eyles, B. Helen, Troilus and Cressida. Early nineteenth century, Folger Library, Washington D.C, https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img27187.
[10] Bastan, Ajda“The Elizabethan Era and Shakespeare ‘s Women Characters in the Public Arena, The Criterion 10, no. 6, 2019, pp. 165-174 (165), file:///C:/Users/Olivia%20Womack/Downloads/SP.pdf.
[11] Maguire, Laura, “Performing Anger: The Anatomy of Abuse(s) in “Troilus and Cressida” Renaissance Drama 31, 2002, pp. 153-183 (159), Performing Anger: The Anatomy of Abuse(s) in “Troilus and Cressida” on JSTOR
[12] Cibber, Colley An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1822, 70, https://archive.org/details/apologyforlifeof00cibbrich.
[13] Cross, Peter, Nell Gwyn as Venus, c. 1678/79, Royal Collection Trust, London, https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/charles-ii-art-power/the-queens-gallery-buckingham-palace/nell-gwyn-as-venus.
[14] Conway, Alison, “Let us be governed by an English C—t”: Reading Nell Gwyn,” Restoration: Studies in Literary Culture, 1660-1700 29, no. 1, 2005, pp. 47-63, “Let us be governe’d by an English C—t”: Reading Nell Gwyn on JSTOR
[15] Vandergucht, Michael. Cressida gives Diomedes Troilus’ Love Token, 1709, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1156695/trolius-and-cressida-act-v-print-vandergucht-michael/.
False as Cressid 