Paris is the one whose moral judgment and honour is most obviously impaired by passion. His main belief in the Trojan debate on the retention of Helen is clearly based on honour, as is plainly indicated by the terms of reference in his major speech (2.2.148-160): with ‘honourable’, ‘treason’, ‘disgrace’, ‘shame’, ‘base compulsion’, ‘degenerate’, ‘generous’, ‘noble’ and ‘unfamed’ used alongside many more. Paris posits a basic assumption in the romantic Chivalric code when he suggests the noblest cause for combat to be a fair lady. The fallacy in his argument is the flawed assumption that a wrongful act can be ‘wiped off’ (2.2.158) by a valiant action rather than the correction or material reimbursement to the wronged part. This fallacy is noticed by Hector who states: ‘Pleasure and revenge / Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice / Of any true decision.’ (11. 171-173). Paris represents (not unlike Laertes) the mere mouthing of chivalric ideals, devoid of any true moral honur. If Laertes is deafened to the ‘voice of . . . true decision’ by revenge, Paris is deafened by pleasure. For both, honour is based in reputation and neither is concerned with the law and morality the knight was committed to defend.
Alongside this, Hector, the brave and knightly paladin is similarly guilty of a misinterpretation of honour, though wrath rather than passion is shown his downfall. The first time we hear of Hector in Act I scene 2, we learn of his shame of being deafeated on the battlefield. Having been struck down, Hector leaves the battlefield early to wipe off the disgrace. The interim has been spent ‘fasting and waking’ (1.2.29-40) as a result of the ‘disdain and shame’ (1.2.38-39) aroused by his defeat. Whilst this in itself is not noteworthy, the spirit he embodies demonstrates his flaw, for he is motivated by ‘anger’ and ‘wrath’- clearly, by hope of revenge. Shakespeare exposes to us the irrationality of this anger, Hector deaf to the ‘voice of any true decision.’ (2.2.181-182) Thus, we hear that before issuing to battle Hector ‘chid Andromache, and struck his armourer,’ (1.2.9) behaviour hardly consistent or expectant to true honour. In the Trojan debate concerning the retention of Helen, Hector repeatedly argues against Paris and Troilus, urging them to let Helen go. He argues that she is not worth the bloodshed she has caused and also pleads that ‘moral laws / Of nature and of nation’ (2.2.184) demand her return. But, having argued logically and morally, Hector suddenly amazes us with a startling volte-face, his determination to retain Helen based purely in his belief in honour. Though he knows that Helen should be returned as a purely abstract notion of right, Hector allows his morality to be overruled by considerations of ‘joint and several dignities,’ (2.2.202) individual, family, and national honour.
This blind pursuit of honour is later seen as Hector pursues the unnamed Grecian solider in beautiful armour, Hector suddenly overcome by lust, greed and covetousness.
The violence of Hector’s words is remarkable:
I like thy armour well;
I’ll frush it, and unlock the rivets all,
But I’ll be master of it.
Wilt thou not, beast, abide?
Why, then, fly on, I’ll hunt thee for thy hide.
(5.7.28-31.)
The vocabulary and feeling are those of the chase, not of chivalrous battle, and the onomatopoeia and rhythm of the lines suggest force and violence. Captivated by the beautiful externals of chivalry, represented by the intricate and glorious armour, he ignores the rotten core hidden by the sumptuous exterior. This can further be applied to the Chivalric code and Hector’s ideals of honour, that there is only corruption and no true moral value behind the facade. Hector places undue emphasis on outer show. Though he may not be deceived by the beauty of Helen, he is deceived by the attractions of reputation, the most superficial form of honour. Like the other Trojan princes, he mistakes appearance for reality just as he mistakes reputation for true honour. It could be suggested therefore that this can be applied to Hector as a character, becoming more the appearance than reality. He appears a generous, noble and worthy knight but Shakespeare reveals to us the core of pride, self-esteem and conceit.
Ulysses description and complementation of Troilus arguably delves Troilus’ flaw in honour to the root just as ironically as Hector’s is exposed by the anonymous Grecian. Ulysses, admittedly, is a better and more impartial judge than Pandarus, but we must note that his description of Troilus is not based on direct knowledge of the young man but on Aeneas’s report of him, and Aeneas is no more disinterested than Pandarus, for he is constantly presenting his fellow Trojans in too glorified a light. Just as he was mistaken in interpreting Hector’s pride as courtesy, so too he similarly ascribes to Troilus one specific trait the play eventually proves to be false: judgment. And Troilus’s judgment is impaired like Hector’s honour, because it is swayed unduly by his senses. Admittedly, Troilus indulges in all the conventional behaviour of the courtly lover: voyeuristic watching, fasting, writing poetry, we should not be deluded into interpreting his feeling for Cressida as something noble or honourable. The poetry of his actions are an outer casing, like the anonymous Greek’s armour; the reality they mask is sensuality and lust, a lechery comparable more to Helen and Paris and Cressida and Diomed than true honourable love.
In Act 2, sc 2, Hector admonishes Troilus with potentially the key-lines of the play:
‘Tis mad idolatry
To make the service greater than the god;
And the will dotes that is inclinable
To what infectiously itself affects,
Without some image of the affected merit. (2.2.56-60)
To judge and praise something exclusively on the evidence of the senses, without considering the true moral worth and merit behind the beauteous exterior, is mad and an indication of a diseased will. Hector is correct when he charges both Troilus and Paris
with superficiality. Blinded by dazzling appearances, Troilus is incapable of true judgment. Praising Hector’s turn in opinion, Troilus stresses that it is ‘glory’ rather than revenge which motivates the Trojans and he speaks in glowing terms of Helen as a motivator to valiant conquest: ‘Whose present courage may beat down our foes, And fame in time to come canonise us.’ (2.2.204-206).
In the course of the play, however, Troilus, unlike Hector, undergoes a considerable change. After witnessing Cressida’s infidelity, marked by her crowning act of treachery in the giving of the gift to Diomede as a pledge of her future surrender to him, Troilus seems to almost disintegrate, the incompatibility between his mental image of Cressida and what he sees of her in the camp at fault for ‘The bonds of heaven’ becoming ‘slipped, dissolved and loosed’ (5.2.185-186) However, this change is proven not to be for the better. Significantly, he tries at first to deny the truth of what his senses convey to him: ‘This is, and is not, Cressida.’ (5.2.175) Now that his ‘will distaste[s] what it elected,’ (5.2.70) he still refuses to accept what his reason tells him is true, the undeniable fact that Cressida has been false to him. Both Troilus’ reason and his senses concur in assuring him of her falseness, but Troilus is still incapable of calm, rational judgment. Rather than an immediate surrendering of all his false, romantic and aesthetically based values, he tries to question the validity of appearance. ‘Will he swagger himself out on’s own eyes?’ (5.2.164-165) Thersites asks incredulously, and this is precisely what Troilus tries to do. Though he ultimately, tacitly, accepts the truth of Cressida’s infidelity, this acceptance does not lead him rationally to surrender her to his rival as unworthy of continued devotion; it merely stirs him to continue the conventional line of behaviour by vowing vengeance on Diomed. Contrary form being won to reason, Troilus bounces from one delusion to another; it is now no longer ‘pleasure’ which forces his decisions but ‘revenge’ which deafens him to the sensibility of any true decision. His conduct on the battlefield is governed by ideas of vengeance, not glory but the ‘performance of [his] heaving spleen’ (2.2.205).
Yet to assume this condemnation is solely levelled on the Trojan soldiers ignores the considerable failings of Ajax, Achilles and the manipulative nature of Ulysses, the Greeks tarred with the same brush as the Trojans. In both camps, the search for glory is, in reality, a search for reputation, a search for fame. When persuading Achilles and Ajax to fight, Ulysses masterfully utilises rhetoric but unintentionally exposes the flaws of both the respective characters and their notions of honour through his persuasion. He bids all the Greek generals pass by Achilles’s tent scornfully, leading to Achilles’ philosophising on honour. He believes praise and public acclaim are awarded to the possessor of certain external features: rank, wealth, a prepossessing appearance, which are his, frequently, by chance rather than merit. Yet Achilles notes that his own condition is, externally, in no way altered and he wonders, therefore, why he should be treated with such disdain. Whilst this in itself seems a truly honourable interpretation, Ulysses continues, urging Achilles to renewed military action in order to regain the fame he once enjoyed and which he still desires. It is clear from the imagery of the speech that Ulysses himself considers the fame and glory of little value. Like Time, ‘the great-sized monster of ingratitudes,’ (3.3.152) like the fashionable host who barely spares a glance for his departing guest while embracing the new arrival, the ‘whole world’(3.3.181) delights in new things not because of their intrinsic worth but merely for their glitter and material appeal, yet he is successful. Ajax and Achilles finally emerge form their tents, impelled by the most primitive and least noble of urges: anger and the desire for vengeance. Shakespeare proves Reason is defeated by Pride; and Pride is easily perverted to Vengeance.
The overall parting feeling in Troilus and Cressida is one of total disillusion and utter despair, unredeemed by any single ray of hope or light. It can be seen on both a micro and macrocosmic level, the private conflict between Diomed and Troilus an echo of a greater conflict between Greece and Troy. Both protagonists and armies are aware they fight over an object whose intrinsic value is worhless, yet their actual motivation is self-esteem, pride and glory. Just as Troilus seeks revenge against Diomed for the personal insult he has received, so his final words on the whole war are, ‘Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe!’ (5.11.33) The play as a whole is a demonstration that honour, moral and social, is not a predetermined value system answerable to a harmonious cosmic design
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