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Troilus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Troilus (disambiguation).
A helmeted figure emerges from behind a fountain, topped with two lions. That is
being approached from the other side by an unarmoured rider. Below the horse is
a setting sun. Painted underneath this scene are trees shown in different seaso
ns of the year.
Achilles (left) ambushing Troilus (on horseback, right). Etruscan fresco, Tomb o
f the Bulls, Tarquinia, 530 520 BC.
Troilus[1] (English pronunciation: /'tr??l?s/ or /'tro??l?s/; Ancient Greek: ???
???? Trolos; Latin: Troilus) is a legendary character associated with the story o
f the Trojan War. The first surviving reference to him is in Homer's Iliad, whic
h scholars believe was composed by bards and sung in the late 9th or 8th century
BC.[2]
In Greek mythology, Troilus is a young Trojan prince, one of the sons of King Pr
iam (or sometimes Apollo) and Hecuba. Prophecies link Troilus' fate to that of T
roy and so he is ambushed and murdered by Achilles. Sophocles was one of the wri
ters to tell this tale. It was also a popular theme among artists of the time. A
ncient writers treated Troilus as the epitome of a dead child mourned by his par
ents. He was also regarded as a paragon of youthful male beauty.
In Western European medieval and Renaissance versions of the legend, Troilus is
the youngest of Priam's five legitimate sons by Hecuba. Despite his youth he is
one of the main Trojan war leaders. He dies in battle at Achilles' hands. In a p
opular addition to the story, originating in the 12th century, Troilus falls in
love with Cressida, whose father has defected to the Greeks. Cressida pledges he
r love to Troilus but she soon switches her affections to the Greek hero Diomede
s when sent to her father in a hostage exchange. Chaucer and Shakespeare are amo
ng the authors who wrote works telling the story of Troilus and Cressida. Within
the medieval tradition, Troilus was regarded as a paragon of the faithful court
ly lover and also of the virtuous pagan knight. Once the custom of courtly love
had faded, his fate was regarded less sympathetically.
Little attention was paid to the character during the 18th and 19th centuries. H
owever, Troilus has reappeared in 20th and 21st century retellings of the Trojan
War by authors who have chosen elements from both the classical and medieval ve
rsions of his story.
Contents [hide]
1
The story in the ancient world
1.1
The standard myth: the beautiful youth murdered
1.2
Ancient literary sources supporting the standard myth
1.2.1 Homer and the missing texts of the archaic and classical periods
1.2.2 The Alexandra
1.2.3 Other written sources
1.3
Ancient art and artifact sources
1.4
A variant myth: the boy-soldier overwhelmed
1.4.1 Virgil and other Latin sources
1.4.2 Greek writers in the boy-soldier tradition
2
The story in the medieval and Renaissance eras
2.1
The second Hector, wall of Troy
2.1.1 Dares
2.1.2 Description in medieval texts
2.1.3 Knight and war leader
2.1.4 Death
2.2
The lover
2.2.1 The story of Troilus and Cressida

2.2.2 Benot and Guido

2.2.3 Boccaccio
2.2.4 Chaucer and his successors
2.2.5 Shakespeare and Dryden
3
Modern versions
3.1
Once more a man-boy
3.2
Reinventing the love story
4
Notes and references
5
Annotated bibliography
6
External links
The story in the ancient world[edit]
One side of a painted bowl. A mounted youth holding a spear rides away from a fo
untain. A woman runs after him. She is looking back towards the fountain.
Troilus and Polyxena fleeing. Kylix, by C-painter, c. 570 565 BC, Louvre (CA 6113)
, black-figure Attic. That there are two horses shown side by side can most clea
rly be seen by looking at their legs and tails.
A helmeted man with a shield is rising. Next to him is a dropped flask. On the f
ar side of a colonnaded fountain can be seen part of a woman who is running away
. The water spout in the fountain is set in a lion's head.
Achilles about to pursue Troilus and Polyxena from his position behind the wellhouse (reverse side of above).
For the ancient Greeks, the tale of the Trojan War and the surrounding events ap
peared in its most definitive form in the Epic Cycle of eight narrative poems[3]
from the archaic period in Greece (750 BC 480 BC). The story of Troilus is one
of a number of incidents that helped provide structure to a narrative that exten
ded over several decades and 77 books from the beginning of the Cypria to the en
d of the Telegony. The character's death early in the war and the prophecies sur
rounding him demonstrated that all Trojan efforts to defend their home would be
in vain. His symbolic significance is evidenced by linguistic analysis of his Gr
eek name "Troilos". It can be interpreted as an elision of the names of Tros and
Ilos, the legendary founders of Troy, as a diminutive or pet name "little Tros"
or as an elision of Troi (Troy) and lyo (to destroy). These multiple possibiliti
es emphasise the link between the fates of Troilus and of the city where he live
d.[4] On another level, Troilus' fate can also be seen as foreshadowing the subs
equent deaths of his murderer Achilles, and of his nephew Astyanax and sister Po
lyxena, who, like Troilus, die at the altar in at least some versions of their s
tories.[5]
Given this, it is unfortunate that the Cypria the part of the Epic Cycle that cove
rs the period of the Trojan War of Troilus' death does not survive. Indeed, no com
plete narrative of his story remains from archaic times or the subsequent classi
cal period (479 323 BC). Most of the literary sources from before the Hellenistic
age (323 30 BC) that even referred to the character are lost or survive only in fr
agments or summary. The surviving ancient and medieval sources, whether literary
or scholarly, contradict each other, and many do not tally with the form of the
myth that scholars now believe to have existed in the archaic and classical per
iods.
Partially compensating for the missing texts are the physical artifacts that rem
ain from the archaic and classical periods. The story of the circumstances aroun
d Troilus' death was a popular theme among pottery painters. (The Beazley Archiv
e website lists 108 items of Attic pottery alone from the 6th to 4th centuries B
C containing images of the character.[6]) Troilus also features on other works o
f art and decorated objects from those times. It is a common practice for those
writing about the story of Troilus as it existed in ancient times to use both li
terary sources and artifacts to build up an understanding of what seems to have
been the most standard form of the myth and its variants.[7] The brutality of th
is standard form of the myth is highlighted by commentators such as Alan Sommers
tein, an expert on ancient Greek drama, who describes it as "horrific" and "[p]e
rhaps the most vicious of all the actions traditionally attributed to Achilles."

[8]
The standard myth: the beautiful youth murdered[edit]
A painted strip running between the handles on the shoulders of a flask. A man w
earing a greek-style helmet pulls a naked youth from one of a pair of horses. In
the man's other hand is a raised sword. Behind the man, water pours form a lion
's head fountain.
Achilles seizing Troilus by the hair as the youth attempts to flee the ambush at
the fountain. Etruscan amphora of the Pontic group, ca. 540 530 BC. From Vulci.
Troilus is an adolescent boy or ephebe, the son of Hecuba, queen of Troy. As he
is so beautiful, Troilus is taken to be the son of the god Apollo. However, Hecu
ba's husband, King Priam, treats him as his own much-loved child.
A prophecy says that Troy will not fall if Troilus lives into adulthood. So the
goddess Athena encourages the Greek warrior Achilles to seek him out early in th
e Trojan War. The youth is known to take great delight in his horses. Achilles a
mbushes him and his sister Polyxena when he has ridden with her for water from a
well in the Thymbra an area outside Troy where there is a temple of Apollo.
The Greek is struck by the beauty of both Trojans and is filled with lust. It is
the fleeing Troilus whom swift-footed[9] Achilles catches, dragging him by the
hair from his horse. The young prince refuses to yield to Achilles' sexual atten
tions and somehow escapes, taking refuge in the nearby temple. But the warrior f
ollows him in, and beheads him at the altar before help can arrive. The murderer
then mutilates the boy's body. The mourning of the Trojans at Troilus' death is
great.
This sacrilege leads to Achilles own death, when Apollo avenges himself by helpin
g Paris strike Achilles with the arrow that pierces his heel.
Ancient literary sources supporting the standard myth[edit]
Homer and the missing texts of the archaic and classical periods[edit]
The earliest surviving literary reference to Troilus is in Homer's Iliad, which
formed one part of the Epic Cycle. It is believed that Troilus' name was not inv
ented by Homer and that a version of his story was already in existence.[10] Lat
e in the poem, Priam berates his surviving sons, and compares them unfavourably
to their dead brothers including Trlon hippiocharmn.[11] The interpretation of hipp
iocharmn is controversial but the root hipp- implies a connection with horses. Fo
r the purpose of the version of the myth given above, the word has been taken as
meaning "delighting in horses".[12] Sommerstein believes that Homer wishes to i
mply in this reference that Troilus was killed in battle, but argues that Priam'
s later description of Achilles as andros paidophonoio ("boy-slaying man")[13] i
ndicates that Homer was aware of the story of Troilus as a murdered child; Somme
rstein believes that Homer is playing here on the ambiguity of the root paido- m
eaning boy in both the sense of a young male and of a son.[14]
Ancient written sources for Troilus
Author Work
Date
Full length descriptions in mythological literature
Stasinus of Cyprus?
Cypria late 7th century BC (lost)
Phrynichus
Troilos 6th 5th century BC (lost)
Sophocles
Troilos 5th century BC (lost)
Strattis
Troilos 5th 4th century BC (lost)
Dares Phrygius de excidio Trojae historia
parts written 1st 6th century?
Briefer references in mythological literature
Homer Iliad 8th 7th century BC
Stesichorus
possibly in Iliupersis 7th 6th century BC (lost)
Ibycus unknown text of which only a few words survive late 6th century BC
Sophocles
Polyxene
5th century BC (lost)
Lycophron
Alexandra
3rd century BC?

Virgil Aeneid 29 19 BC
Seneca the Younger
Agamemnon
1st century
Dictys Cretensis
Ephemeridos belli Trojani
1st 3rd century
Ausonius
Epitaphs
4th century
Quintus of Smyrna
Posthomerica
Late 4th century?
Literary allusions to Troilus
Ibycus Polycrates poem late 6th century BC
Callimachus
Epigrams
3rd century BC
Plautus Bacchides
3rd 2nd century BC
Cicero Tusculanae Quaestiones c.45 BC
Horace Odes Book 2
23 BC
Statius Silvae Late 1st century
Dio Chrysostom Discourses
1st 2nd centuries
"Clement"
Clementine Homilies
2nd century?
Ancient and medieval academic commentaries on and summaries of ancient literatur
e.
Various anonymous authors
Scholia to the Iliad
5th century BC to 9th ce
ntury?
Hyginus Fabulae 1st century BC 1st century AD
The "Pseudo-Apollodorus"
Library 1st 2nd century
Eutychius Proclus?
Chrestomathy
2nd century?
Servius Scholia to the Aeneid Late 4th century
First Vatican Mythographer
Mythography
9th 11th century?
Eustathius of Thessalonica
Scholia to the Iliad
12th century
John Tzetzes
Scholia to the Alexandra
12th century
Troilus' death was also described in the Cypria, one of the parts of the Epic Cy
cle that is no longer extant. The poem covered the events preceding the Trojan W
ar and the first part of the war itself up to the events of the Iliad. Although
the Cypria does not survive, most of an ancient summary of the contents, thought
to be by Eutychius Proclus, remains. Fragment 1 mentions that Achilles killed T
roilus, but provides no more detail.[15] However, Sommerstein takes the verb use
d to describe the killing (phoneuei) as meaning that Achilles murders Troilus.[1
6]
In Athens, the early tragedians Phrynicus and Sophocles both wrote plays called
Troilos and the comic playwright Strattis wrote a parody of the same name. Of th
e esteemed Nine lyric poets of the archaic and classical periods, Stesichorus ma
y have referred to Troilus' story in his Iliupersis and Ibycus may have written
in detail about the character. With the exception of these authors, no other pre
-Hellenistic written source is known to have considered Troilus at any length.[1
7]
Unfortunately, all that remains of these texts are the smallest fragments or sum
maries and references to them by other authors. What does survive can be in the
form of papyrus fragments, plot summaries by later authors or quotations by othe
r authors. In many cases these are just odd words in lexicons or grammar books w
ith an attribution to the original author.[18] Reconstructions of the texts are
necessarily speculative and should be viewed with "wary but sympathetic sceptici
sm".[19] In Ibycus' case all that remains is a parchment fragment containing a m
ere six or seven words of verse accompanied with a few lines of scholia. Troilus
is described in the poem as godlike and is killed outside Troy. From the scholi
a, he is clearly a boy. The scholia also refer to a sister, someone "watching ou
t" and a murder in the sanctuary of Thymbrian Apollo. While acknowledging that t
hese details may have been reports of other later sources, Sommerstein thinks it
probable that Ibycus told the full ambush story and is thus the earliest identi
fiable source for it.[20] Of Phrynicus, one fragment remains considered to refer
to Troilus. This speaks of "the light of love glowing on his reddening cheeks".
[21]
Of all these fragmentary pre-Hellenistic sources, the most is known of Sophocles

Troilos. Even so, only 54 words have been identified as coming from the play.[2
2] Fragment 619 refers to Troilus as an andropais, a man-boy. Fragment 621 indic
ates that Troilus was going to a spring with a companion to fetch water or to wa
ter his horses.[23] A scholion to the Iliad[24] states that Sophocles has Troilu
s ambushed by Achilles while exercising his horses in the Thymbra. Fragment 623
indicates that Achilles mutilated Troilus' corpse by a method known as maschalis
mos. This involved preventing the ghost of a murder victim from returning to hau
nt their killer by cutting off the corpse's extremities and stringing them under
its armpits.[25] Sophocles is thought to have also referred to the maschalismos
of Troilus in a fragment taken to be from an earlier play Polyxene.[26]
Sommerstein attempts a reconstruction of the plot of the Troilos, in which the t
itle character is incestuously in love with Polyxena and tries to discourage the
interest in marrying her shown by both Achilles and Sarpedon, a Trojan ally and
son of Zeus. Sommerstein argues that Troilus is accompanied on his fateful jour
ney to his death, not by Polyxena, but by his tutor, a eunuch Greek slave.[27] C
ertainly there is a speaking role for a eunuch who reports being castrated by He
cuba[28] and someone reports the loss of their adolescent master.[29] The incest
uous love is deduced by Sommerstein from a fragment of Strattis' parody, assumed
to partially quote Sophocles, and from his understanding that the Sophocles pla
y intends to contrast barbarian customs, including incest, with Greek ones. Somm
erstein also sees this as solving what he considers the need for an explanation
of Achilles' treatment of Troilus' corpse, the latter being assumed to have insu
lted Achilles in the process of warning him off Polyxena.[30] Italian professor
of English and expert on Troilus, Piero Boitani, on the other hand, considers Tr
oilus' rejection of Achilles' sexual advances towards him as sufficient motive f
or the mutilation.[31]
The Alexandra[edit]
The first surviving text with more than the briefest mention of Troilus is a Hel
lenistic poem dating from no earlier than the 3rd century BC: the Alexandra by t
he tragedian Lycophron or a namesake of his. The poem consists of the obscure pr
ophetic ravings of Cassandra:[32]
Ay! me, for thee fair-fostered flower, too, I groan, O lion whelp, sweet darling
of thy kindred, who didst smite with fiery charm of shafts the fierce dragon an
d seize for a little loveless while in unescapable noose him that was smitten, t
hyself unwounded by thy victim: thou shalt forfeit thy head and stain thy father s
altar-tomb with thy blood.[33]
This passage is explained in the Byzantine writer John Tzetzes' scholia as a ref
erence to Troilus seeking to avoid the unwanted sexual advances of Achilles by t
aking refuge in his father Apollo's temple. When he refuses to come out, Achille
s goes in and kills him on the altar.[34] Lycophron's scholiast also says that A
pollo started to plan Achilles' death after the murder.[35] This begins to build
up the elements of the version of Troilus' story given above: he is young, much
loved and beautiful; he has divine ancestry, is beheaded by his rejected Greek
lover and, we know from Homer, had something to do with horses. The reference to
Troilus as a "lion whelp" hints at his having the potential to be a great hero,
but there is no explicit reference to a prophecy linking the possibility of Tro
ilus reaching adulthood and Troy then surviving.
Other written sources[edit]
No other extended passage about Troilus exists from before the Augustan Age by w
hich time other versions of the character's story have emerged. The remaining so
urces compatible with the standard myth are considered below by theme.
An image painted on the body of a vase. A seated woman speaks to a man behind he
r while her hand gestures forward. The man wears greaves and a helmet and holds
a shield and a spear.
Athena directing Achilles to attack Troilus. A feature of the tale not available

from written sources. Detail of an Etruscan red-figure stamnos (from a pair kno
wn as Fould stamnoi ), ca. 300 BC. From Vulci.
A naked youth holds the reins of a horse. He is naked apart from sandals and som
e a crown or garland on his head. Behind him is a shield, the aegis of Athena
An example of Troilus with only one horse. Reverse side of above
Parentage
The Apollodorus responsible for the Library lists Troilus last of Priam and Hecu
ba's sons a detail adopted in the later tradition
but then adds that it is said
that the boy was fathered by Apollo.[36] On the other hand, Hyginus includes Tro
ilus in the middle of a list of Priam's sons without further comment.[37] In the
early Christian writings the Clementine Homilies, it is suggested that Apollo w
as Troilus' lover rather than his father.[38]
Youthfulness
Horace emphasises Troilus' youth by calling him inpubes ("unhairy", i.e. pre-pub
escent or, figuratively, not old enough to bear arms).[39] Dio Chrysostom deride
s Achilles in his Trojan discourse, complaining that all that the supposed hero
achieved before Homer was the capture of Troilus who was still a boy.[40]
Prophecies
The First Vatican Mythographer reports a prophecy that Troy will not fall if Tro
ilus reaches the age of twenty and gives that as a reason for Achilles' ambush.[
41] In Plautus, Troilus' death is given as one of three conditions that must be
met before Troy would fall.[42]
Beauty
Ibycus, in seeking to praise his patron, compares him to Troilus, the most beaut
iful of the Greeks and the Trojans.[43] Dio Chrysostom refers to Troilus as one
of many examples of different kinds of beauty.[44] Statius compares a beautiful
dead slave missed by his master to Troilus.[45]
Object of pederastic love
Servius, in his scholia to the passage from Virgil discussed below, says that Ac
hilles lures Troilus to him with a gift of doves. Troilus then dies in the Greek
's embrace. Robert Graves[46] interprets this as evidence of the vigour of Achil
les' love-making but Timothy Gantz[47] considers that the "how or why" of Serviu
s' version of Troilus' death is unclear.[48] Sommerstein favours Graves's interp
retation saying that murder was not a part of ancient pederastic relations and t
hat nothing in Servius suggests an intentional killing.[49]
Location of ambush and death
A number of reports have come down of Troilus' death variously mentioning water,
exercising horses and the Thymbra, though they do not necessarily build into a
coherent whole: the First Vatican Mythographer reports that Troilus was exercisi
ng outside Troy when Achilles attacked him;[41] a commentator on Ibycus says tha
t Troilus was slain by Achilles in the Thymbrian precinct outside Troy;[50] Eust
athius of Thessalonica's commentary on the Iliad says that Troilus was exercisin
g his horses there;[51] Apollodorus says that Achilles ambushed Troilus inside t
he temple of Thymbrian Apollo;[52] finally, Statius[45] reports that Troilus was
speared to death as he fled around Apollo's walls.[53] Gantz struggles to make
sense of what he sees as contradictory material, feeling that Achilles' running
down of Troilus' horse makes no sense if Troilus was just fleeing to the nearby
temple building. He speculates that the ambush at the well and the sacrifice in
the temple could be two different versions of the story or, alternatively, that
Achilles takes Troilus to the temple to sacrifice him as an insult to Apollo.[54
]
Mourning
Trojan and, especially, Troilus' own family's mourning at his death seems to hav
e epitomised grief at the loss of a child in classical civilization. Horace,[39]
Callimachus[55] and Cicero[56] all refer to Troilus in this way.
Ancient art and artifact sources[edit]
A picture on several pottery fragments. A youth rides one of two horses. He talk
s to a woman with a vase on her head. Behind the woman is some sort of structure
. One of the horses is drinking from a bowl.
Troilus and Polyxena at the fountain, Laconian black-figured dinos, Rider Painte

r, 560 540 BC., Louvre E662, Campana Collection 1861

More pottery fragments. An armoured man kneels, hiding behind the structure.
Achilles lying in wait, part of the same illustration
Ancient Greek art, as found in pottery and other remains, frequently depicts sce
nes associated with Troilus' death: the ambush, the pursuit, the murder itself a
nd the fight over his body.[57] Depictions of Troilus in other contexts are unus
ual. One such exception, a red-figure vase painting from Apulia c.340BC, shows T
roilus as a child with Priam.[58]
In the ambush, Troilus and Polyxena approach a fountain where Achilles lies in w
ait. This scene was familiar enough in the ancient world for a parody to exist f
rom c.400BC showing a dumpy Troilus leading a mule to the fountain.[59] In most
serious depictions of the scene, Troilus rides a horse, normally with a second n
ext to him.[60] He is usually, but not always, portrayed as a beardless youth. H
e is often shown naked; otherwise he wears a cloak or tunic. Achilles is always
armed and armoured. Occasionally, as on the vase picture at [40], or the fresco
from the Tomb of the Bulls shown at the head of this article, either Troilus or
Polyxena is absent, indicating how the ambush is linked to each of their stories
. In the earliest definitely identified version of this scene, (a Corinthian vas
e c.580BC), Troilus is bearded and Priam is also present. Both these features ar
e unusual.[61] More common is a bird sitting on the fountain; normally a raven,
symbol of Apollo and his prophetic powers and thus a final warning to Troilus of
his doom;[62] sometimes a cock, a common love gift suggesting that Achilles att
empted to seduce Troilus.[63] In some versions, for example an Attic amphora in
the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston dating from c.530BC (seen here [41]) Troilus has
a dog running with him. On one Etruscan vase from the 6th century BC, doves are
flying from Achilles to Troilus, suggestive of the love gift in Servius.[64] Th
e fountain itself is conventionally decorated with a lion motif.
The earliest identified version of the pursuit or chase is from the third quarte
r of the 7th century BC.[59] Next chronologically is the best known[65] version
on the Franois Vase by Kleitias.[66] The number of characters shown on pottery sc
enes varies with the size and shape of the space available.[67] The Franois Vase
is decorated with several scenes in long narrow strips. This means that the Troi
lus frieze is heavily populated. In the centre, (which can be seen at the Perseu
s Project at [42],) is the fleeing Troilus, riding one horse with the reins of t
he other in his hand. Below them is the vase which Polyxena (partially missing), w
ho is ahead of him, has dropped. Achilles is largely missing but it is clear tha
t he is armoured. They are running towards Troy [43] where Antenor gestures towa
rds Priam. Hector and Polites, brothers of Troilus, emerge from the city walls i
n the hope of saving Troilus. Behind Achilles [44] are a number of deities, Athe
na, Thetis, (Achilles' mother,) Hermes, and Apollo (just arriving). Two Trojans
are also present, the woman gesturing to draw the attention of a youth filling h
is vase. As the deities appear only in pictorial versions of the scene, their ro
le is subject to interpretation. Boitani, sees Athena as urging Achilles on and
Thetis as worried by the arrival of Apollo who, as Troilus' protector, represent
s a future threat to Achilles.[68] He does not indicate what he thinks Hermes ma
y be talking to Thetis about. The classicist and art historian Professor Thomas
H. Carpenter sees Hermes as a neutral observer, Athena and Thetis as urging Achi
lles on and the arrival of Apollo as the artist's indication of the god's future
role in Achilles' death.[61] As Athena is not traditionally a patron of Achille
s, Sommerstein sees her presence in this and other portrayals of Troilus' death
as evidence of the early standing of the prophetic link between Troilus' death a
nd the fall of Troy, Athena being driven, above all, by her desire for the city'
s destruction.[69]
An illustration on the shoulders of a vase. A man in Greek-style armour chases a
youth who is riding one of a pair of horses. His cloak streams behind him. A br
oken vase is below the horses. On either side of these figures are fleeing woman
and, beyond them, men in ancient Anatolian costumes.

Achilles pursues Troilus, black-figure Attic hydria, ca. 510 BC, Staatliche Anti
kensammlungen (Inv. 1722)
The standard elements in the pursuit scene are Troilus, Achilles, Polyxena, the
two horses and the fallen vase. On two tripods, an amphora and a cup, Achilles a
lready has Troilus by the hair.[70] A famous vase in the British Museum, which g
ave the Troilos Painter the name by which he is now known, shows the two Trojans
looking back in fear, as the beautiful youth whips his horse on. This vase can
be seen at the Perseus Project site [45]. The water spilling from the shattered
vase below Troilus' horse, symbolises the blood he is about to shed.[71]
The iconography of the eight legs and hooves of the horses can be used to identi
fy Troilus on pottery where his name does not appear; for example, on a Corinthi
an vase where Troilus is shooting at his pursuers and on a peaceful scene on a C
halcidian krater where the couples Paris and Helen, Hector and Andromache are la
belled, but the youth riding one of a pair of horses is not.[72]
A later Southern Italian interpretation of the story is on vases held respective
ly at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.
On the krater from c.380-70BC at [46] Troilus can be seen with just one horse tr
ying to defend himself with a throwing spear; on the hydria from c.325-320BC at
[47], Achilles is pulling down the youth's horse.
two images from a bowl. The outside strip shows an armoured man dragging a boy t
owards an altar. Behind them two horses run away. In the inner illustration, the
y are at the altar. The man has his sword raised ready to swing. He holds by the
hair the boy who is struggling to break free.
Achilles about to behead Troilus at the altar. Red-figured kylix c. 510BC, signe
d by Euphronios. Now in the Museo Archeologico, Perugia. Note how the size of th
e figures is used to emphasise the brutality of the murder.[73]
The earliest known depictions of the death or murder of Troilus are on shield ba
nds from the turn of the 7th into the 6th century BC found at Olympia. On these,
a warrior with a sword is about to stab a naked youth at an altar. On one, Troi
lus clings to a tree (which Boitani takes for the laurel sacred to Apollo).[74]
A crater contemporary with this shows Achilles at the altar holding the naked Tr
oilus upside down while Hector, Aeneas and an otherwise unknown Trojan Deithynos
arrive in the hope of saving the youth. In some depictions Troilus is begging f
or mercy. On an amphora, Achilles has the struggling Troilus slung over his shou
lder as he goes to the altar.[75] Boitani, in his survey of the story of Troilus
through the ages, considers it of significance that two artifacts (a vase and a
sarcophagus) from different periods link Troilus' and Priam's death by showing
them on the two sides of the same item, as if they were the beginning and end of
the story of the fall of Troy.[76] Achilles is the father of Neoptolemus, who s
lays Priam at the altar during the sack of Troy. Thus the war opens with a fathe
r killing a son and closes with a son killing a father.
Some pottery shows Achilles, already having killed Troilus, using his victim's s
evered head as a weapon as Hector and his companions arrive too late to save him
; some includes the watching Athena, occasionally with Hermes. At [48] is one su
ch picture showing Achilles fighting Hector over the altar. Troilus' body is slu
mped and the boy's head is either flying through the air, or stuck to the end of
Achilles' spear. Athena and Hermes look on. Aeneas and Deithynos are behind Hec
tor.
Sometimes details of the closely similar deaths of Troilus and Astyanax are exch
anged.[77] [49] shows one such image where it is unclear which murder is portray
ed. The age of the victim is often an indicator of which story is being told and
the relative small size here might point towards the death of Astyanax, but it
is common to show even Troilus as much smaller than his murderer, (as is the cas
e with the kylix pictured to the above right). Other factors in this case are th
e presence of Priam (suggesting Astyanax), that of Athena (suggesting Troilus) a

nd the fact that the scene is set outside the walls of Troy (again suggesting Tr
oilus).[78]
A variant myth: the boy-soldier overwhelmed[edit]
A different version of Troilus' death appears on a red-figure cup by Oltos. Troi
lus is on his knees, still in the process of drawing his sword when Achilles' sp
ear has already stabbed him and Aeneas comes too late to save him. Troilus wears
a helmet, but it is pushed up to reveal a beautiful young face. This is the onl
y such depiction of Troilus' death in early figurative art.[79] However, this ve
rsion of Troilus as a youth defeated in battle appears also in written sources.
Virgil and other Latin sources[edit]
This version of the story appears in Virgil's Aeneid,[80] in a passage describin
g a series of paintings decorating the walls of a temple of Juno. The painting i
mmediately next to the one depicting Troilus shows the death of Rhesus, another
character killed because of prophecies linked to the fall of Troy. Other picture
s are similarly calamitous.
a piture beaten out on the bronze of the breastplate. A man with a shield drags
a naked youth by the hair from his horse.
A Roman illustration still showing Achilles having run down a mounted Troilus. D
etail of bronze breastplate of a statue of Germanicus. 2nd century. From Perugia
.
In a description whose pathos is heightened by the fact that it is seen through
a compatriot's eyes,[81] Troilus is infelix puer ("unhappy boy") who has met Ach
illes in "unequal" combat. Troilus' horses flee while he, still holding their re
ins, hangs from the chariot, his head and hair trailing behind while the backwar
d-pointing spear scribbles in the dust. (The First Vatican Mythographer[41] elab
orates on this story, explaining that Troilus's body is dragged right to the wal
ls of Troy.[82])
In his commentary on the Aeneid, Servius[48] considers this story as a deliberat
e departure from the "true" story, bowdlerized to make it more suitable for an e
pic poem. He interprets it as showing Troilus overpowered in a straight fight. G
antz,[83] however, argues that this might be a variation of the ambush story. Fo
r him, Troilus is unarmed because he went out not expecting combat and the backw
ard pointing spear was what Troilus was using as a goad in a manner similar to c
haracters elsewhere in the Aeneid. Sommerstein, on the other hand believes that
the spear is Achilles' that has struck Troilus in the back. The youth is alive b
ut mortally wounded as he is being dragged towards Troy.[84]
An issue here is the ambiguity of the word congressus ("met"). It often refers t
o meeting in a conventional combat but can have reference to other types of meet
ings too. A similar ambiguity appears in Seneca[85] and in Ausonius' 19th epitap
h,[86] narrated by Troilus himself. The dead prince tells how he has been dragge
d by his horses after falling in unequal battle with Achilles. A reference in th
e epitaph comparing Troilus' death to Hector's suggests that Troilus dies later
than in the traditional narrative, something that, according to Boitani,[87] als
o happens in Virgil.
Greek writers in the boy-soldier tradition[edit]
Quintus of Smyrna, in a passage whose atmosphere Boitani describes as sad and el
egiac, retains what for Boitani are the two important issues of the ancient stor
y, that Troilus is doomed by Fate and that his failure to continue his line symb
olises Troy's fall.[88] In this case, there is no doubt that Troilus entered bat
tle knowingly, for in the Posthomerica Troilus's armour is one of the funerary g
ifts after Achilles' own death. Quintus repeatedly emphasises Troilus's youth: h
e is beardless, virgin of a bride, childlike, beautiful, the most godlike of all
Hecuba's children. Yet he was lured by Fate to war when he knew no fear and was
struck down by Achilles' spear just as a flower or corn that has borne no seed

is killed by the gardener.[89]

In the Ephemeridos belli Trojani (Journal of the Trojan War),[90] supposedly wri
tten by Dictys the Cretan during the Trojan War itself, Troilus is again a defea
ted warrior, but this time captured with his brother Lycaon. Achilles vindictive
ly orders that their throats be slit in public, because he is angry that Priam h
as failed to advance talks over a possible marriage to Polyxena. Dictys' narrati
ve is free from gods and prophecy but he preserves Troilus' loss as something to
be greatly mourned:
The Trojans raised a cry of grief and, mourning loudly,
roilus had met so grievous a death, for they remembered
ing in the early years of his manhood, was the people's
, not only because of his modesty and honesty, but more
s handsome appearance.[91]

bewailed the fact that T

how young he was, who be
favourite, their darling
especially because of hi

The story in the medieval and Renaissance eras[edit]

The page reads "The famous Historie of Troilus and Cresseid. Excellently express
ing the beginning of their loues and the conceited wooing of Pandarus, Prince of
Lycia. Written by William Shakespeare. London Printed by G. Eld for R. Bonian a
nd H. Walley, and are to be sold at the Spred Eagle in Paules Church-yeard, ouer
against the great North doore. 1609." (sic)
William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida: 1609 quarto, title page
In the sources considered so far, Troilus' only narrative function is his death.
[92] The treatment of the character changes in two ways in the literature of the
medieval and renaissance periods. First, he becomes an important and active pro
tagonist in the pursuit of the Trojan War itself. Second, he becomes an active h
eterosexual lover, rather than the passive victim of Achilles' pederasty. By the
time of John Dryden's neo-classical adaptation of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cre
ssida it is the ultimate failure of his love affair that defines the character.
For medieval writers, the two most influential ancient sources on the Trojan War
were the purported eye-witness accounts of Dares the Phrygian, and Dictys the C
retan, which both survive in Latin versions. In Western Europe the Trojan side o
f the war was favoured and therefore Dares was preferred over Dictys.[93] Althou
gh Dictys' account positions Troilus' death later in the war than was traditiona
l, it conforms to antiquity's view of him as a minor warrior if one at all. Dare
s' De excidio Trojae historia (History of the Fall of Troy)[94] introduces the c
haracter as a hero who takes part in events beyond the story of his death.
Authors of the 12th and 13th centuries such as Joseph of Exeter and Albert of St
ade continued to tell the legend of the Trojan War in Latin in a form that follo
ws Dares' tale with Troilus remaining one of the most important warriors on the
Trojan side. However, it was two of their contemporaries, Benot de Sainte-Maure i
n his French verse romance and Guido delle Colonne in his Latin prose history, b
oth also admirers of Dares, who were to define the tale of Troy for the remainde
r of the medieval period. The details of their narrative of the war were copied,
for example, in the Troy Books of Laud and Lydgate and also Raoul Lefevre's Rec
uyell of the Historyes of Troye. Lefevre, through Caxton's 1474 printed translat
ion, was in turn to become the best known retelling of the Troy story in Renaiss
ance England and influenced Shakespeare among others. The story of Troilus as a
lover, invented by Benot and retold by Guido, generated a second line of influenc
e. It was taken up as a tale that could be told in its own right by Boccaccio an
d then by Chaucer who established a tradition of retelling and elaborating the s
tory in English-language literature, which was to be followed by Henryson and Sh
akespeare.
The second Hector, wall of Troy[edit]
As indicated above, it was through the writings of Dares the Phrygian that the p
ortrayal of Troilus as an important warrior was transmitted to medieval times. H

owever, some authors have argued that the tradition of Troilus as a warrior may
be older. The passage from the Iliad described above is read by Boitani[95] as i
mplying that Priam put Troilus on a par with the very best of his warrior sons.
The description of him in that passage as hippiocharmn is rendered by some author
ities as meaning a warrior charioteer rather than merely someone who delights in
horses.[12] The many missing and partial literary sources might include such a
hero. Yet only the one ancient vase shows Troilus as a warrior falling in a conv
entional battle.[79]
The descent of Trojan War Literature in the Middle Ages[96]
Author Work
Date
Followers of Dares
Joseph of Exeter
De bello Troiano
late 12th century
Albertus Stadensis
Troilus finished 1249
(Two other versions)
Followers of Dictys
(Eight largely in Greek)
Combining Dares and Dictys
Benot de Sainte-Maure Roman de Troie finished c. 1184
Followers of Benot
Guido delle Colonne
Historia destructionis Troiae published 1287
(at least 19 other versions)
Followers of Guido
Giovanni Boccaccio
Il Filostrato c. 1340
Unknown Laud Troy Book c. 1400
John Lydgate
Troy Book
commissioned 1412
Raoul Lefevre Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye
by 1464
(at least 16 other versions)
Followers of Lefevre
William Caxton printed translation of the Recuyell
c. 1474
William Shakespeare
Troilus and Cressida
by 1603
(Several other versions)
Dares[edit]
In Dares, Troilus is the youngest of Priam's royal sons, bellicose when peace or
truces are suggested and the equal of Hector in bravery, "large and most beauti
ful... brave and strong for his age, and eager for glory."[97] He slaughters man
y Greeks, wounds Achilles and Menelaus, routs the Myrmidons more than once befor
e his horse falls and traps him and Achilles takes the opportunity to put an end
to his life. Memnon rescues the body, something that didn't happen in many late
r versions of the tale. Troilus' death comes near the end of the war not at its
beginning. He now outlives Hector and succeeds him as the Trojans' great leader
in battle. Now it is in reaction to Troilus's death that Hecuba plots Achilles'
murder.
As the tradition of Troilus the warrior advances through time, the weaponry and
the form of combat change. Already in Dares he is a mounted warrior, not a chari
oteer or foot warrior, something anachronistic to epic narrative.[98] In later v
ersions he is a knight with armour appropriate to the time of writing who fights
against other knights and dukes. His expected conduct, including his romance, c
onforms to courtly or other values contemporary to the writing.
Description in medieval texts[edit]
The medieval texts follow Dares' structuring of the narrative in describing Troi
lus after his parents and four royal brothers Hector, Paris, Deiphobus and Helen
us.
Joseph of Exeter, in his Daretis Phrygii Ilias De bello Troiano (The Iliad of Da
res the Phrygian on the Trojan War), describes the character as follows:
The limbs of Troilus expand and fill his space.

In mind a giant, though a boy in years, he yields

to none in daring deeds with strength in all his parts
his greater glory shines throughout his countenance.[99]
Benot de Sainte-Maure's description in Le Roman de Troie (The Romance of Troy) is
too long to quote in full, but influenced the descriptions that follow. Benot go
es into details of character and facial appearance avoided by other writers. He
tells that Troilus was "the fairest of the youths of Troy" with:
fair hair, very charming and naturally shining, eyes bright and full of gaiety..
. He was not insolent or haughty, but light of heart and gay and amorous. Well w
as he loved, and well did he love...[100]
Guido delle Colonne's Historia destructionis Troiae (History of the Destruction
of Troy) says:
The fifth and last was named Troilus, a young man as courageous as possible in w
ar, about whose valour there are many tales which the present history does not o
mit later on.[101]
The Laud Troy Book:
The youngest doughti Troylus
A doughtier man than he was on
Of hem alle was neuere non,Save Ector, that was his brother
There never was goten suche another.[102]
The boy who in the ancient texts was never Achilles' match has now become a youn
g knight, a worthy opponent to the Greeks.
Knight and war leader[edit]
In the medieval and renaissance tradition, Troilus is one of those who argue mos
t for war against the Greeks in Priam's council. In several texts, for example t
he Laud Troy Book, he says that those who disagree with him are better suited to
be priests.[103] Guido, and writers who follow him, have Hector, knowing how he
adstrong his brother can be, counsel Troilus not to be reckless before the first
battle.[104]
In the medieval texts, Troilus is a doughty knight throughout the war, taking ov
er, as in Dares, after Hector's death as the main warrior on the Trojan side. In
deed he is named as a second Hector by Chaucer and Lydgate.[105] These two poets
follow Boccaccio in reporting that Troilus kills thousands of Greeks.[106] Howe
ver, the comparison with Hector can be seen as acknowledging Troilus' inferiorit
y to his brother through the very need to meention him.[107]
In Joseph, Troilus is greater than Alexander, Hector, Tydeus, Bellona and even M
ars, and kills seven Greeks with one blow of his club. He does not strike at opp
onents' legs because that would demean his victory. He only fights knights and n
obles, and disdains facing the common warriors.
Albert of Stade saw Troilus as so important that he is the title character of hi
s version of the Trojan War. He is "the wall of his homeland, Troy's protection,
the rose of the military...."[108]
The list of Greek leaders Troilus wounds expands in the various re-tellings of t
he war from the two in Dares to also include Agamemnon, Diomedes and Menelaus. G
uido, in keeping his promise to tell of all Troilus' valorous deeds, describes m
any incidents. Troilus is usually victorious but is captured in an early battle
by Menestheus before his friends rescue him. This incident reappears in the imit

ators of Guido, such as Lefevre and the Laud and Lydgate Troy Books.[109]
Death[edit]
Within the medieval Trojan tradition, Achilles withdraws from fighting in the wa
r because he is to marry Polyxena. Eventually, so many of his followers are kill
ed that he decides to rejoin the battle leading to Troilus' death and, in turn,
to Hecuba, Polyxena and Paris plotting Achilles' murder.
A very busy picture where many figures are shown dressed in late medieval style.
In the centre is the temple where Achilles is being ambushed. On either sides a
re the battles where Troilus and Paris are killed. Scrolls of text are visible a
bove and below the picture, though what is written is not clear.
15th-century Dutch tapestry of the deaths of Troilus, Achilles and Paris. Near t
he top of the left panel, the raised sword is held by Achilles who is about to b
ehead the helpless Troilus. At the bottom, he is dragging the headless body behi
nd his horse.[110]
Albert and Joseph follow Dares in having Achilles behead Troilus as he tries to
rise after his horse falls. In Guido and authors he influenced, Achilles specifi
cally seeks out Troilus to avenge a previous encounter where Troilus has wounded
him. He therefore instructs the Myrmidons to find Troilus, surround him and cut
him off from rescue.
In the Laud Troy Book, this is because Achilles almost killed Troilus in the pre
vious fight but the Trojan was rescued. Achilles wants to make sure that this do
es not happen again. This second combat is fought as a straight duel between the
two with Achilles, the greater warrior, winning.
In Guido, Lefevre and Lydgate Troilus' killer's behaviour is very different, sho
rn of any honour. Achilles waits until his men have killed Troilus' horse and cu
t loose his armour. Only then
And when he sawe how Troilus nakid stod,
Of longe fightyng awaped and amaat
And from his folke alone disolat
- Lydgate, Troy Book, iv, 2756-8.
does Achilles attack and behead him.
In an echo of the Iliad, Achilles drags the corpse behind his horse. Thus, the c
omparison with the Homeric Hector is heightened and, at the same time, aspects o
f the classical Troilus's fate are echoed.
The lover[edit]
A printed page. A picture and some text and set asymmetrically in a wide band de
corated with a leaf motif. The text shows the last few verses of Book I and the
start of Book II of Troilus and Criseyde. The first letter of Book II is ornatel
y decorated. Above the text, the picture is set in its own decorated border. It
shows the tall slender figures of a man and a woman in long medieval clothing. B
etween them is a hexagonal table set with food and drink.
A Pre-Raphaelite interpretation by Edward Burne-Jones in the Kelmscott Chaucer,
designed by William Morris.
The last aspect of the character of Troilus to develop in the tradition has beco
me the one for which he is best known. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and Shakes
peare's Troilus and Cressida both focus on Troilus in his role as a lover. This
theme is first introduced by Benot de Sainte-Maure in the Roman de Troie and deve
loped by Guido delle Colonne. Boccaccio's Il Filostrato is the first book to tak
e the love-story as its main theme. Robert Henryson and John Dryden are other au
thors who dedicate works to it.
The story of Troilus' romance developed within the context of the male-centred c

onventions of courtly love and thus the focus of sympathy was to be Troilus and
not his beloved.[111] As different authors recreated the romance, they would int
erpret it in ways affected both by the perspectives of their own times and their
individual preoccupations. The story as it would later develop through the work
s of Boccaccio, Chaucer and Shakespeare is summarised below.
The story of Troilus and Cressida[edit]
Troilus used to mock the foolishness of other young men's love affairs. But one
day he sees Cressida in the temple of Athena and falls in love with her. She is
a young widow and daughter of the priest Calchas who has defected to the Greek c
amp.
Embarrassed at having become exactly the sort of person he used to ridicule, Tro
ilus tries to keep his love secret. However, he pines for Cressida and becomes s
o withdrawn that his friend Pandarus asks why he is unhappy and eventually persu
ades Troilus to reveal his love.
Pandarus offers to act as a go-between, even though he is Cressida's relative an
d should be guarding her honour. Pandarus convinces Cressida to admit that she r
eturns Troilus' love and, with Pandarus's help, the two are able to consummate t
heir feelings for each other.
Their happiness together is brought to an end when Calchas persuades Agamemnon t
o arrange Cressida's return to him as part of a hostage exchange in which the ca
ptive Trojan Antenor is freed. The two lovers are distraught and even think of e
loping together but they finally cooperate with the exchange. Despite Cressida's
initial intention to remain faithful to Troilus, the Greek warrior Diomedes win
s her heart. When Troilus learns of this, he seeks revenge on Diomedes and the G
reeks and dies in battle. Just as Cressida betrayed Troilus, Antenor was later t
o betray Troy.
Benot and Guido[edit]
In the Roman de Troie, the daughter of Calchas whom Troilus loves is called Bris
eis. Their relationship is first mentioned once the hostage exchange has been ag
reed:
Whoever had joy or gladness, Troilus suffered affliction and grief. That was for
the daughter of Calchas, for he loved her deeply. He had set his whole heart on
her; so mightily was he possessed by his love that he thought only of her. She
had given herself to him, both her body and her love. Most men knew of that.[112
]
In Guido, Troilus' and Diomedes' love is now called Briseida. His version (a his
tory) is more moralistic and less touching, removing the psychological complexit
y of Benot's (a romance) and the focus in his retelling of the love triangle is f
irmly shifted to the betrayal of Troilus by Briseida. Although Briseida and Diom
edes are most negatively caricatured by Guido's moralising, even Troilus is subj
ect to criticism as a "fatuous youth" prone, as in the following, to youthful fa
ults.[113]
Troilus, however, after he had learned of his father's intention to go ahead and
release Briseida and restore her to the Greeks, was overwhelmed and completely
wracked by great grief, and almost entirely consumed by tears, anguished sighs,
and laments, because he cherished her with the great fervour of youthful love an
d had been led by the excessive ardour of love into the intense longing of blazi
ng passion. There was no one of his dear ones who could console him.[114]
Briseis, at least for now, is equally affected by the possibility of separation
from her lover. Troilus goes to her room and they spend the night together, tryi
ng to comfort each other. Troilus is part of the escort to hand her over the nex

t day. Once she is with the Greeks, Diomedes is immediately struck by her beauty
. Although she is not hostile, she cannot accept him as her lover. Meanwhile Cal
chas tells her to accept for herself that the gods have decreed Troy's fall and
that she is safer now she is with the Greeks.
A battle soon takes place and Diomedes unseats Troilus from his horse. The Greek
sends it as a gift to Briseis/Briseida with an explanation that it had belonged
to her old lover. In Benot, Briseis complains at Diomedes' seeking to woo her by
humbling Troilus, but in Guido all that remains of her long speech in Benot is t
hat she "cannot hold him in hatred who loves me with such purity of heart."[115]
Diomedes soon does win her heart. In Benot, it is through his display of love and
she gives him her glove as a token. Troilus seeks him out in battle and utterly
defeats him. He saves Diomedes' life, only so that he can bring her a message o
f Troilus' contempt. In Guido, Briseida's change of heart comes after Troilus wo
unds Diomedes seriously. Briseida tends Diomedes and then decides to take him as
her lover, because she does not know if she will ever meet Troilus again.
In later medieval tellings of the war, the episode of Troilus and Briseida/Cress
ida is acknowledged and often given as a reason for Diomedes and Troilus to seek
each other out in battle. The love story also becomes one that is told separate
ly.
Boccaccio[edit]
A page of illuminated manuscript. A picture is drawn in the loops of the "S" tha
t opens the text. The theme round the edge of the page includes berries and bird
s with intertwined necks.
The opening of Canto 2 from a 14th-century manuscript of Il Filostrato. The illu
stration shows Pandarus visiting Troilus whose unrequited love has made him take
to his bed. Codex Christianei, Ex Bibliotheca Gymnasii Altonani (Hamburg).
Main article: Il Filostrato
The first major work to take the story of Troilus' failed love as its central th
eme is Giovanni Boccaccio's Il Filostrato.[116] The title means "the one struck
down by love".[117] There is an overt purpose to the text. In the proem, Boccacc
io himself is Filostrato and addresses his own love who has rejected him.[118]
Boccaccio introduces a number of features of the story that were to be taken up
by Chaucer. Most obvious is that Troilus' love is now called Criseida or Cressid
a.[119] An innovation in the narrative is the introduction of the go-between Pan
darus. Troilus is characterised as a young man who expresses whatever moods he h
as strongly, weeping when his love is unsuccessful, generous when it is.
Boccaccio fills in the history before the hostage exchange as follows. Troilus m
ocks the lovelorn glances of other men who put their trust in women before falli
ng victim to love himself when he sees Cressida, here a young widow, in the Pall
adium, the temple of Athena. Troilus keeps his love secret and is made miserable
by it. Pandarus, Troilus' best friend and Cressida's cousin in this version of
the story, acts as go-between after persuading Troilus to explain his distress.
In accordance with the conventions of courtly love, Troilus' love remains secret
from all except Pandarus,[120] until Cassandra eventually divines the reason fo
r Troilus' subsequent distress.
After the hostage exchange is agreed, Troilus suggests elopement, but Cressida a
rgues that he should not abandon Troy and that she should protect her honour. In
stead, she promises to meet him within ten days. Troilus spends much of the inte
rvening time on the city walls, sighing in the direction where Cressida has gone
. No horses or sleeves, as used by Guido or Benot, are involved in Troilus' learn
ing of Cressida's change of heart. Instead a dream hints at what has happened, a
nd then the truth is confirmed when a brooch
previously a gift from Troilus to C
ressida
is found on Diomedes' looted clothing. In the mean time, Cressida has ke

pt up the pretence in their correspondence that she still loves Troilus. After C
ressida's betrayal is confirmed, Troilus becomes ever fiercer in battle.
Chaucer and his successors[edit]
Main article: Troilus and Criseyde
An illustrated page. In the foreground a man in a stand talks to reclining robed
figures. In the middle ground is a forest and a road along which various figure
s travel towards a castle in the background.
Chaucer reciting his Troilus. Frontispiece from early 15th-century manuscript of
Troilus and Criseyde, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde[121] reflects a more humorous world-view
than Boccaccio's poem. Chaucer does not have his own wounded love to display an
d therefore allows himself an ironic detachment from events and Criseyde is more
sympathetically portrayed.[122] In contrast to Boccaccio's final canto, which r
eturns to the poet's own situation, Chaucer's palinode has Troilus looking down
laughing from heaven, finally aware of the meaninglessness of earthly emotions.
About a third of the lines of the Troilus are adapted from the much shorter Il F
ilostrato, leaving room for a more detailed and characterised narrative.[123]
Chaucer's Criseyde is swayed by Diomedes playing on her fear. Pandarus is now he
r uncle, more worldly-wise and more active in what happens and so Troilus is mor
e passive.[124] This passivity is given comic treatment when Troilus passes out
in Criseyde's bedroom and is lifted into her bed by Pandarus. Troilus' repeated
emotional paralysis is comparable to that of Hamlet who may have been based on h
im. It can be seen as driven by loyalty both to Criseyde and to his homeland, bu
t has also been interpreted less kindly.[125]
Another difference in Troilus' characterisation from the Filostrato is that he i
s no longer misogynistic in the beginning. Instead of mocking lovers because of
their putting trust in women, he mocks them because of how love affects them.[12
6] Troilus' vision of love is stark: total commitment offers total fulfilment; a
ny form of failure means total rejection. He is unable to comprehend the subtlet
ies and complexities that underlie Criseyde's vacillations and Pandarus' manoeuv
rings.[127]
In his storytelling Chaucer links the fates of Troy and Troilus, the mutual down
turn in fortune following the exchange of Criseyde for the treacherous Antenor b
eing the most significant parallel.[128] Little has changed in the general sweep
of the plot from Boccaccio. Things are just more detailed, with Pandarus, for e
xample, involving Priam's middle son Deiphobus during his attempts to unite Troi
lus and Cressida. Another scene that Chaucer adds was to be reworked by Shakespe
are. In it, Pandarus seeks to persuade Cressida of Troilus' virtues over those o
f Hector, before uncle and niece witness Troilus returning from battle to public
acclaim with much damage to his helmet. Chaucer also includes details from the
earlier narratives. So, reference is made not just to Boccaccio's brooch, but to
the glove, the captured horse and the battles of the two lovers in Benot and Gui
do.
Because of the great success of the Troilus, the love story was popular as a fre
e standing tale to be retold by English-language writers throughout the 15th and
16th centuries and into the 17th century. The theme was treated either seriousl
y or in burlesque. For many authors, true Troilus, false Cresseid and pandering
Pandarus became ideal types eventually to be referred to together as such in Sha
kespeare.[129]
During the same period, English retellings of the broader theme of the Trojan Wa
r tended to avoid Boccaccio's and Chaucer's additions to the story, though their
authors, including Caxton, commonly acknowledged Chaucer as a respected predece
ssor. John Lydgate's Troy Book is an exception.[130] Pandarus is one of the elem
ents from Chaucer's poem that Lydgate incorporates, but Guido provides his overa

ll narrative framework. As with other authors, Lydgate's treatment contrasts Tro

ilus' steadfastness in all things with Cressida's fickleness. The events of the
war and the love story are interwoven. Troilus' prowess in battle markedly incre
ases once he becomes aware that Diomedes is beginning to win Cressida's heart, b
ut it is not long after Diomedes final victory in love when Achilles and his Myr
midon's treacherously attack and kill Troilus and maltreat his corpse, concludin
g Lydgate's treatment of the character as an epic hero,[131] who is the purest o
f all those who appear in the Troy Book.[132]
Of all the treatments of the story of Troilus and, especially, Cressida in the p
eriod between Chaucer and Shakespeare, it is Robert Henryson's that receives the
most attention from modern critics. His poem The Testament of Cresseid is descr
ibed by the Middle English expert C. David Benson as the "only fifteenth century
poem written in Great Britain that begins to rival the moral and artistic compl
exity of Chaucer's Troilus".[133] In the Testament the title-character is abando
ned by Diomedes and then afflicted with leprosy so that she becomes unrecognizab
le to Troilus. He pities the lepers she is with and is generous to her because s
he reminds him of the idol of her in his mind, but he remains the virtuous pagan
knight and does not achieve the redemption that she does. Even so, following He
nryson Troilus was seen as a representation of generosity.[134]
Shakespeare and Dryden[edit]
Main article: Troilus and Cressida
A print. In the foreground are a young man and awoman in each others arms. An ol
der man looks on. All are dressed after the ancient Roman style
Troilus and Cressida in Pandarus' orchard. Valentine Walter Bromley after Shakes
peare.
Another approach to Troilus' love story in the centuries following Chaucer is to
treat Troilus as a fool, something Shakespeare does in allusions to him in play
s leading up to Troilus and Cressida.[135] In Shakespeare's "problem play"[136]
there are elements of Troilus the fool. However, this can be excused by his age.
He is an almost beardless youth, unable to fully understand the workings of his
own emotions, in the middle of an adolescent infatuation, more in love with lov
e and his image of Cressida than the real woman herself.[137] He displays a mixt
ure of idealism about eternally faithful lovers and of realism, condemning Hecto
r's "vice of mercy".[138] His concept of love involves both a desire for immedia
te sexual gratification and a belief in eternal faithfulness.[139] He also displ
ays a mixture of constancy, (in love and supporting the continuation of war) and
inconsistency (changing his mind twice in the first scene on whether to go to b
attle or not). More a Hamlet than a Romeo,[140] by the end of the play his illus
ions of love shattered and Hector dead, Troilus might show signs of maturing, re
cognising the nature of the world, rejecting Pandarus and focusing on revenge fo
r his brother's death rather than for a broken heart or a stolen horse.[141] The
novelist and academic Joyce Carol Oates, on the other hand, sees Troilus as beg
of love and then hatred. For her, Troilus
inning and ending the play in frenzies
is unable to achieve the equilibrium of a tragic hero despite his learning expe
riences, because he remains a human-being who belongs to a banal world where lov
e is compared to food and cooking and sublimity cannot be achieved.[142]
Troilus and Cressida's sources include Chaucer, Lydgate, Caxton and Homer,[143]
but there are creations of Shakespeare's own too and his tone is very different.
Shakespeare wrote at a time when the traditions of courtly love were dead and w
hen England was undergoing political and social change.[144] Shakespeare's treat
ment of the theme of Troilus' love is much more cynical than Chaucer's, and the
character of Pandarus is now grotesque. Indeed, all the heroes of the Trojan War
are degraded and mocked.[145] Troilus' actions are subject to the gaze and comm
entary of both the venal Pandarus and of the cynical Thersites who tells us:
...That dissembling abominable varlet Diomed has got that same scurvy, doting, f
oolish knave's sleeve of Troy there in his helm. I would fain see them meet, tha

t that same young Trojan ass, that loves the whore there, might send that Greeki
sh whoremasterly villain with the sleeve back to the dissembling luxurious drab
of a sleeveless errand...[146]
A print. The inside of a large grand tent. In the centre and right foreground ar
e a young man and woman. Beyond them to the left, in another section of the tent
, an older man is restraining an angry young man. In the far left background an
ugly man looks on. The characters are dressed in a mixture of ancient, medieval
and Georgian clothing.
Thersites (far left with torch) watches Ulysses restraining Troilus as Diomedes
seduces Cressida. Painted by Angelica Kauffman in 1789, and engraved by Luigi Sc
hiavonetti for the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery's illustrated edition of Troilus
and Cressida in 1795.
The action is compressed and truncated, beginning in medias res with Pandarus al
ready working for Troilus and praising his virtues to Cressida over those of the
other knights they see returning from battle, but comically mistaking him for D
eiphobus. The Trojan lovers are together only one night before the hostage excha
nge takes place. They exchange a glove and a sleeve as love tokens, but the next
night Ulysses takes Troilus to Calchas' tent, significantly near Menelaus' tent
.[147] There they witness Diomedes successfully seducing Cressida after taking T
roilus' sleeve from her. The young Trojan struggles with what his eyes and ears
tell him, wishing not to believe it. Having previously considered abandoning the
senselessness of war in favour of his role of lover and having then sought to r
econcile love and knightly conduct, he is now left with war as his only role.[14
8]
Both the fights between Troilus and Diomedes from the traditional narrative of B
enot and Guido take place the next day in Shakespeare's retelling. Diomedes captu
res Troilus' horse in the first fight and sends it to Cressida. Then the Trojan
triumphs in the second, though Diomedes escapes. But in a deviation from this na
rrative it is Hector, not Troilus, whom the Myrmidons surround in the climatic b
attle of the play and whose body is dragged behind Achilles' horse. Troilus hims
elf is left alive vowing revenge for Hector's death and rejecting Pandarus. Troi
lus' story ends, as it began, in medias res with him and the remaining character
s in his love-triangle remaining alive.
Some seventy years after Shakespeare's Troilus was first presented, John Dryden
re-worked it as a tragedy, in his view strengthening Troilus' character and inde
ed the whole play, by removing many of the unresolved threads in the plot and am
biguities in Shakespeare's portrayal of the protagonist as a believable youth ra
ther than a clear-cut and thoroughly sympathetic hero.[149] Dryden described thi
s as "remov[ing] that heap of Rubbish, under which many excellent thoughts lay b
ury'd."[150] His Troilus is less passive on stage about the hostage exchange, ar
guing with Hector over the handing over of Cressida, who remains faithful. Her s
cene with Diomedes that Troilus witnesses is her attempt "to deceive deceivers".
[151] She throws herself at her warring lovers' feet to protect Troilus and comm
its suicide to prove her loyalty. Unable to leave a still living Troilus on the
stage, as Shakespeare did, Dryden restores his death at the hands of Achilles an
d the Myrmidons but only after Troilus has killed Diomedes. According to P. Boit
ani, Dryden goes to "the opposite extreme of Shakespeare's... solv[ing] all prob
lems and therefore kill[ing] the tragedy".[152]
Modern versions[edit]
After Dryden's Shakespeare, Troilus is almost invisible in literature until the
20th century. Keats does refer to Troilus and Cressida in the context of the "so
vereign power of love"[153] and Wordsworth translated some of Chaucer but, as a
rule, love was portrayed in ways far different from how it is in the Troilus and
Cressida story.[154] Boitani sees the two World Wars and the 20th century's eng
agement "in the recovery of all sorts of past myths"[155] as contributing to a r
ekindling of interest in Troilus as a human being destroyed by events beyond his

control. Similarly Foakes sees the aftermath of one World War and the threat of
a second as key elements for the successful revival of Shakespeare's Troilus in
two productions in the first half of the 20th century,[156] and one of the auth
ors discussed below names Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly: From Troy to Vie
tnam as the trigger for his wish to retell the Trojan war.[157]
Boitani discusses the modern use of the character of Troilus in a chapter entitl
ed Eros and Thanatos.[158] Love and death, the latter either as a tragedy in its
elf or as an epic symbol of Troy's own destruction, therefore, are the two core
elements of the Troilus myth for the editor of the first book-length survey of i
t from ancient to modern times. He sees the character as incapable of transforma
tion on a heroic scale in the manner of Ulysses and also blocked from the possib
ility of development as an archetypal figure of troubled youth by Hamlet. Troilu
s' appeal for the 20th and 21st century is his very humanity.[155]
Belief in the medieval tradition of the Trojan War that followed Dictys and Dare
s survived the Revival of Learning in the Renaissance and the advent of the firs
t English translation of the Iliad in the form of Chapman's Homer. (Shakespeare
used both Homer and Lefevre as sources for his Troilus.) However the two suppose
dly eye-witness accounts were finally discredited by Jacob Perizonius in the ear
ly years of the 18th century.[159] With the chief source for his portrayal as on
e of the most active warriors of the Trojan War undermined, Troilus has become a
n optional character in modern Trojan fiction, except for those that retell the
love story itself. Lindsay Clarke and Phillip Parotti, for example, omit Troilus
altogether. Hilary Bailey includes a character of that name in Cassandra: Princ
ess of Troy but little remains of the classical or medieval versions except that
he fights Diomedes. However, some of the over sixty re-tellings of the Trojan W
ar since 1916[160] do feature the character.
Once more a man-boy[edit]
One consequence of the reassessment of sources is the reappearance of Troilus in
his ancient form of andropais.[161] Troilus takes this form in Giraudoux's The
Trojan War Will Not Take Place, his first successful reappearance in the 20th ce
ntury.[162] Troilus is a fifteen-year-old boy whom Helen has noticed following h
er around. After turning down the opportunity to kiss her when she offers and wh
en confronted by Paris, he eventually accepts the kiss at the end of the play ju
st as Troy has committed to war. He is thus a symbol of the whole city's fatal f
ascination with Helen.[163]
Troilus, in one of his ancient manifestations as a boy-soldier overwhelmed, reap
pears both in works Boitani discusses and those he does not. Christa Wolf in her
Kassandra features a seventeen-year-old Troilus, first to die of all the sons o
f Priam. The novel's treatment of the character's death has features of both med
ieval and ancient versions.[164] Troilus has just gained his first love, once mo
re called Briseis. It is only after his death that she is to betray him. On the
first day of the war, Achilles seeks Troilus out and forces him into battle with
the help of the Myrmidons. Troilus tries to fight in the way he has been taught
princes should do, but Achilles strikes the boy down and leaps on top of him, b
efore attempting to throttle him. Troilus escapes and runs to the sanctuary of t
he temple of Apollo where he is helped to take his armour off. Then, in "some of
the most powerful and hair-raising" words ever written on Troilus' death,[165]
Wolf describes how Achilles enters the temple, caresses then half-throttles the
terrified boy, who lies on the altar, before finally beheading him like a sacrif
icial victim. After his death, the Trojan council propose that Troilus be offici
ally declared to have been twenty in the hope of avoiding the prophecy about him
but Priam, in his grief, refuses as this would insult his dead son further. In
"exploring the violent underside of sexuality and the sexual underside of violen
ce",[166] Wolf revives a theme suggested by the ancient vases where an "erotic a
ura seems to pervade representations of a fully armed Achilles pursuing or butch
ering a naked, boyish Troilus".[167]

Colleen McCullough is another author who incorporates both the medieval Achilles
' seeking Troilus out in battle and the ancient butchery at the altar. Her The S
ong of Troy includes two characters, Troilos and Ilios,[168] who are Priam's you
ngest children
both with prophecies attached and both specifically named for the
city's founders. They are eight and seven respectively when Paris leaves for Gr
eece and somewhere in their late teens when killed. Troilos is made Priam's heir
after Hector's death, against the boy's will. Odysseus's spies learn of the pro
phecy that Troy will not fall if Troilos comes of age. Achilles therefore seeks
him out in the next battle and kills him with a spear-cast to his throat. In a r
eference to the medieval concept of Troilus as the second Hector, Automedon obse
rves that "with a few more years added, he might have made another Hektor."[169]
Ilios is the last son of Priam to die, killed at the altar in front of his pare
nts by Neoptolemos.
Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Firebrand features an even younger Troilus, just twe
lve when he becomes Hector's charioteer. (His brother wants to keep a protective
eye on him now he is ready for war.) Troilus helps kill Patroclus. Although he
manages to escape the immediate aftermath of Hector's death, he is wounded. Afte
r the Trojans witness Achilles' treatment of Hector's body, Troilus insists on r
ejoining the battle despite his wounds and Hecuba's attempts to stop him. Achill
es kills him with an arrow. The mourning Hecuba comments that he did not want to
live because he blamed himself for Hector's death.
Reinventing the love story[edit]
A feature already present in the treatments of the love story by Chaucer, Henrys
on, Shakespeare and Dryden is the repeated reinvention of its conclusion. Boitan
i sees this as a continuing struggle by authors to find a satisfying resolution
to the love triangle. The major difficulty is the emotional dissatisfaction resu
lting from how the tale, as originally invented by Benot, is embedded into the pr
e-existing narrative of the Trojan War with its demands for the characters to me
et their traditional fates. This narrative has Troilus, the sympathetic protagon
ist of the love story, killed by Achilles, a character totally disconnected from
the love triangle, Diomedes survive to return to Greece victorious, and Cressid
a disappear from consideration as soon as it is known that she has fallen for th
e Greek. Modern authors continue to invent their own resolutions.[170]
William Walton's Troilus and Cressida is the best known and most successful of a
clutch of 20th-century operas on the subject after the composers of previous er
as had ignored the possibility of setting the story.[171] Christopher Hassall's
libretto blends elements of Chaucer and Shakespeare with inventions of its own a
rising from a wish to tighten and compress the plot, the desire to portray Cress
ida more sympathetically and the search for a satisfactory ending.[172] Antenor
is, as usual, exchanged for Cressida but, in this version of the tale, his captu
re has taken place while he was on a mission for Troilus. Cressida agrees to mar
ry Diomedes after she has not heard from Troilus. His apparent silence, however,
is because his letters to her have been intercepted. Troilus arrives at the Gre
ek camp just before the planned wedding. When faced with her two lovers, Cressid
a chooses Troilus. He is then killed by Calchas with a knife in the back. Diomed
es sends his body back to Priam with Calchas in chains. It is now the Greeks who
condemn "false Cressida" and seek to keep her but she commits suicide.
Before Cressida kills herself she sings to Troilus to
...turn on that cold river's brim
beyond the sun's far setting.
Look back from the silent stream
of sleep and long forgetting.
Turn and consider me
and all that was ours;

you shall no desert see

but pale unwithering flowers.[173]
This is one of three references in 20th century literature to Troilus on the ban
ks of the River Styx that Boitani has identified. Louis MacNeice's long poem The
Stygian Banks explicitly takes its name from Shakespeare who has Troilus compar
e himself to "a strange soul upon the Stygian banks" and call upon Pandarus to t
ransport him "to those fields where I may wallow in the lily beds".[174] In MacN
eice's poem the flowers have become children, a paradoxical use of the tradition
ally sterile Troilus[175] who
Patrols the Stygian banks, eager to cross,
But the value is not on the further side of the river,
The value lies in his eagerness. No communion
In sex or elsewhere can be reached and kept
Perfectly for ever. The closed window,
The river of Styx, the wall of limitation
Beyond which the word beyond loses its meaning,
Are the fertilising paradox, the grille
That, severing, joins, the end to make us begin
Again and again, the infinite dark that sanctions
Our growing flowers in the light, our having children...
The third reference to the Styx is in Christopher Morley's The Trojan Horse. A r
eturn to the romantic comedy of Chaucer is the solution that Boitani sees to the
problem of how the love story can survive Shakespeare's handling of it.[176] Mo
rley gives us such a treatment in a book that revels in its anachronism. Young L
ieutenant (soon to be Captain) Troilus lives his life in 1185 BC where he has ca
refully timetabled everything from praying, to fighting, to examining his own mi
stakes. He falls for Cressida after seeing her, as ever, in the Temple of Athena
where she wears black, as if mourning the defection of her father, the economis
t Dr Calchas. The flow of the plot follows the traditional story, but the ending
is changed once again. Troilus' discovery of Cressida's change of heart happens
just before Troy falls. (Morley uses Boccaccio's version of the story of a broo
ch, or in this case a pin, attached to a piece of Diomedes' armour as the eviden
ce that convinces the Trojan.) Troilus kills Diomedes as he exits the Trojan Hor
se, stabbing him in the throat where the captured piece of armour should have be
en. Then Achilles kills Troilus. The book ends with an epilogue. The Trojan and
Greek officers exercise together by the River Styx, all enmities forgotten. A ne
w arrival (Cressida) sees Troilus and Diomedes and wonders why they seem familia
r to her. What Boitani calls "a rather dull, if pleasant, ataraxic eternity" rep
laces Chaucer's Christian version of the afterlife.[177]
In Eric Shanower's graphic novel Age of Bronze, currently still being serialised
, Troilus is youthful but not the youngest son of Priam and Hecuba. In the first
two collected volumes of this version of the Trojan War, Shanower provides a to
tal of six pages of sources covering the story elements of his work alone. These
include most of the fictional works discussed above from Guido and Boccaccio do
wn to Morley and Walton. Shanower begins Troilus' love story with the youth maki
ng fun of Polyxena's love for Hector and in the process accidentally knocking as
ide Cressida's veil. He follows the latter into the temple of Athena to gawp at
her. Pandarus is the widow Cressida's uncle encouraging him. Cressida rejects Tr
oilus' initial advances not because of wanting to act in a seemly manner, as in
Chaucer or Shakespeare, but because she thinks of him as just a boy. However, he
r uncle persuades her to encourage his affection, in the hope that being close t
o a son of Priam will protect against the hostility of the Trojans to the family
of the traitor Calchas. Troilus' unrequited love is used as comic relief in an
otherwise serious retelling of the Trojan War cycle. The character is portrayed
as often indecisive and ineffectual as on the second page of this episode sample
at the official site [50]. It remains to be seen how Shanower will further deve

lop the story.

Troilus is rewarded a rare happy ending in the early Doctor Who story The Myth M
akers.[178] The script was written by Donald Cotton who had previously adapted G
reek tales for the BBC Third Programme.[179] The general tone is one of high com
edy combined with a "genuine atmosphere of doom, danger and chaos" with the BBC
website listing A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum as an inspiration
together with Chaucer, Shakespeare, Homer and Virgil.[180] Troilus is again an
andropais "seventeen next birthday"[181] described as "looking too young for the
military garb".[182] Both "Cressida" and "Diomede" are the assumed names of the
Doctor's companions. Thus Troilus' jealousy of Diomede, whom he believes also l
oves Cressida, is down to confusion about the real situation. In the end "Cressi
da" decides to leave the Doctor for Troilus and saves the latter from the fall o
f Troy by finding an excuse to get him away from the city. In a reversal of the
usual story, he is able to avenge Hector by killing Achilles when they meet outs
ide Troy. (The story was originally intended to end more conventionally, with "C
ressida", despite her love for him, apparently abandoning him for "Diomede", but
the producers declined to renew co-star Maureen O'Brien's contract, requiring t
hat her character Vicki be written out.[183])
Notes and references[edit]
Jump up ^ Also spelled Troilos or Troylus.
Jump up ^ Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Le monde d'Homre, Perrin 2000, p19
Jump up ^ For simplicity's sake, the Iliad and the Odyssey are here treated as p
art of the Epic Cycle, though the term is often used to describe solely the nonHomeric works.
Jump up ^ Boitani, (1989: pp.4 5).
Jump up ^ Burgess (2001: pp.144 5).
Jump up ^ Beazley Archive databases accessible from [1]. Link accessed 12-25-200
7. Note: The databases are intended only for research and academic use.
Jump up ^ Examples of this practice are the section "Troilos and Lykaon" by Gant
z (1993: pp.597 603) and the chapter "Antiquity and Beyond: The Death of Troilus"
by Boitani (1989: pp.1 19).
Jump up ^ Sommerstein (2007: pp. 197,196).
Jump up ^ This Homeric epithet is picked out as applying to Achilles in this con
text both in March (1998: p.389) and Sommerstein (2007: p.197).
Jump up ^ Burgess (2001: p.64).
Jump up ^ Homer Iliad (XXIV, 257) The text for the whole passage in Greek, with
hotlinks to parallel English translations, is available at [2]. (Verified 1 Augu
st 2007.)
^ Jump up to: a b Carpenter (1991: p.17), March (1998: p.389), Gantz (1993: p.59
7) and Lattimore's translation at [3] (and maybe Woodford (1993: p.55) interpret
hippiocharmn as horse-loving; Boitani (1989: p.1), who quotes Alexander Pope's t
ranslation of the Iliad and the Liddell and Scott lexicon and translations avail
able at the Perseus Project (checked 1 August 2007) interpret the word as meanin
g chariot warrior. Sommerstein (2007) wavers between the two meanings giving eac
h in different places in the same book (p.44, p.197). The confusion over the mea
ning dates back to ancient times. The Scholia D (available in Greek at [4] link
checked 14 August 2007) says that the word can mean either a horse warrior or so
meone who takes delight in horses (p.579). Other scholia argue that Homer cannot
have considered Troilus a boy, either because he is considered one of the best
or because he is described as a horse-warrior. (Scholia S-I24257a and S-I24257b
respectively, available in Greek at [5]. Link checked 14 August 2007.)
Jump up ^ Homer Iliad 24.506.
Jump up ^ Sommerstein (2007: pp. 44, 197 8).
Jump up ^ The text is available at [6]. (Verified 1 August 2007.)
Jump up ^ Sommerstein (2007: p.198).
Jump up ^ All these literary sources are discussed in Boitani (1989: p.16), Somm
erstein (2007) and/or Gantz (1993: p597, p.601).
Jump up ^ Sommerstein (2007:pp. xviii xx).

Jump up ^ Malcolm Health on page 111 of "Subject Reviews: Greek Literature", Gre
ece & Rome Vol.54, No 1. (2007), pp.111 6,[7] (link checked 1 August 2007). On pag
es 112 3 Heath reviews Sommerstein et al. (2007).
Jump up ^ Sommerstein (2007: pp.199 200).
Jump up ^ 3 fr 13 Sn, cited in Gantz (1993: p.597), Sommerstein (2007: p.201) an
d Boitani (1989: p.16).
Jump up ^ Text available with parallel translation in Sommerstein (2007 pp:218 27)
.
Jump up ^ Sophocles fragment 621. Text available in the Loeb edition or Sommerst
ein (2007).
Jump up ^ Scholia S-I24257a available in Greek at [8]. Link checked 14 August 20
07. Translated and discussed in Sommerstein (2007: p.203).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.15); Sommerstein (207: pp. 205 8).
Jump up ^ Sophocles Troilus Fragment 528. Text with translation Sommerstein (200
7: pp.74 5); discussed Sommerstein (2007: p.83).
Jump up ^ Sommerstein (2007: pp.203 12).
Jump up ^ Sophocles Troilus (fr.620).
Jump up ^ Sophocles Troilus (fr.629).
Jump up ^ Sommerstein (2007: pp.204 8).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989, p:18).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.16).
Jump up ^ Lycophron, Alexandra 307-13, translation by A. W. Mair, in edition ava
ilable from Loeb Classical Library. A PDF of a Greek manuscript is available at
[9]. (Link verified 1 August 2007.)
Jump up ^ Tzetzes' comments are not readily available but are discussed by Gantz
(1993: p.601) and Boitani (1989: p.17).
Jump up ^ Sommerstein (2007: p.201).
Jump up ^ Apollodorus Library(III.12.5). Greek text with link to parallel Englis
h text available at [10]. Link checked 2 August 2007.
Jump up ^ Hyginus Fabulae 90. English translation at [11]. Link checked 2 August
2007.
Jump up ^ Clementine Homilies v. xv. 145. English translation available at [12].
Link checked 8/8/2007.
^ Jump up to: a b Horace, Odes ii. ix. 13 16. Latin Text with link to translation
available at [13]. Link checked 2 August 2007.
Jump up ^ Dio Chrysostom Discourses (XI, 91)
^ Jump up to: a b c VM (I, 120). The text is not easily available but is cited b
y Gantz (1993: p.602) and Sommerstein (2007: p.200, p.202) among others.
Jump up ^ Plautus, Bacchides 953-4. Text available in Latin with link to English
translation at [14]. Link checked 2 August 2007.
Jump up ^ Ibycus Polycrates poem (l.41-5). Text available in Greek with parallel
German translation at [15]. Link checked 2 August 2007.
Jump up ^ Dio Chrysostom Or. 21.17
^ Jump up to: a b Statius Silvae 2.6 32-3. Latin text available at [16]. Checked
29 July 2007.
Jump up ^ Graves, (1955, 162.g).
Jump up ^ Gantz (1993: p.602).
^ Jump up to: a b Servius' Latin text can be seen at [17]. Link checked 2 August
2007.
Jump up ^ Sommerstein (2007: pp.200 1).
Jump up ^ Gantz (1993: p.597).
Jump up ^ Eustathius on Homer's Iliad XXIV 257, cited by J. G. Frazer in footnot
e 79 to his translation of Apollodorus' Library. Available at [18]. (Link checke
d 2 August 2007). Eustathius follows Scholion S-I24257a, available in Greek at [
19]. (Link checked 14 August 2007).
Jump up ^ Apollodorus Epitome (3, 32) to the Library. The text in Greek with a l
ink to the English translation is available at [20]. Link checked 2 August 2007.
Jump up ^ The meaning of this passage is disputed. Carlos Parada at his Greek My
thology Link takes this as a reference to the walls of Apollo's temple. (Link ch
ecked 2 August 2007.) The footnote to the Loeb translation of this passage assum

es this is a reference to Apollo having built the walls of Troy and that Statius
is following the Virgilian version of the story.
Jump up ^ Gantz (1993: p.601).
Jump up ^ Callimachus, fragment 363 available in Loeb Edition. Cited by Cicero a
t the reference below.
Jump up ^ Cicero, Tusculan Disputations I, xxxix, 93. Latin text available at [2
1] Link checked 2 August 2007.
Jump up ^ The contents of this subsection have been compiled from the following
sources:- Burgess, J. S. (2001); Carpenter, (1991); Woodford (1993); and the par
ts of Boitani (1989) and Gantz (1993) specified for this section of the article
as a whole. All except the Gantz contain illustrations. The Beazley Archive site
s listed in External links was also consulted. Images of the ambush and pursuit
are shown at the address given.
Jump up ^ This picture is reproduced near the top of the entry for Troilus in Ca
rlos Parada's Greek Mythology Link [22]. (Checked 29 July 2007.)
^ Jump up to: a b Carpenter (1991: p.19).
Jump up ^ Briggite Knittlmeyer has proposed that Troilus was seen as an idealise
d version of the noble ephebe, youths being often depicted on pottery as mounted
squires leading their warrior companions' horses. (See this 1998 review of her
Die Attische Aristokratie und ihre Helden: Untersuchungen zu Darstellungen des t
rojanischen Sagenkreises im 6. und frhen 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr (Heidelberg: Verla
g Archaeologie und Geschichte, 1997, ISBN 3-9804648-0-6) written by Michael Ande
rson for the Bryn Mawr Classical Review [23]. Link checked 29 July 2007.)
^ Jump up to: a b Carpenter (1991: p.18).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.13).
Jump up ^ Boitani: (1989: p17).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.17); Sommerstein (2007: p.201).
Jump up ^ March (1998: p.389).
Jump up ^ The sections of this scene linked in the discussion are on the Perseus
Project website. (Links verified 1 August 2007.)
Jump up ^ Woodford (1993: p.58).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: pp.11 12).
Jump up ^ Sommerstein (2007: p.202).
Jump up ^ Gantz (1993: p.598, p.599).
Jump up ^ Woodford (1993: pp.58 9).
Jump up ^ Carpenter (1991: pp.19 20).
Jump up ^ March (1998: p.389) talks of a "violent contrast made between the huge
attacking warrior and the small defenceless boy" and uses the lower of these tw
o pictures as illustration (on p.15).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.11).
Jump up ^ Gantz (1993: p.599).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.5).
Jump up ^ Carpenter (1991: p.20-21).
Jump up ^ The image is further discussed at the Perseus website [24]. Last check
ed, 28 July 2007.
^ Jump up to: a b Boitani (1989: p.7).
Jump up ^ Virgil, Aeneid: I, 474-8. The Latin text with links to English transla
tions can be seen at [25]. Link verified 08/08/2007.
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.2).
Jump up ^ Sommerstein (2007: p.200) takes the mythographer's version to imply th
at Achilles tied Troilus to his horses reins.
Jump up ^ Gantz (1993: note 39, p.838).
Jump up ^ Sommerstein (2007: p.200).
Jump up ^ Seneca Agamemnon 748. The text in Latin, in which Cassandra grieves th
at Troilus met Achilles too soon, is available at [26]. Link verified 10/15/07.
Jump up ^ Ausonius, Epitapia, 19. Latin Text available at [27]. Link verified 8/
8/2007.
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.10).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: pp.6 7).
Jump up ^ Quintus of Smyrna, Posthomerica iv, 470-90. English translation by A.S

.Way available at [28]. Link verified 10/15/2007.

Jump up ^ Full translated text available in Frazer (1966).
Jump up ^ Dictys IV.9, translation by Frazer (1966: p.93).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.7)
Jump up ^ Gordon, R.K. (1934: p.x) in "Introduction" to The Story of Troilus pp.
ix-xvi.
Jump up ^ Available in Latin online at [29] (link checked 8/8/2007) and in Engli
sh at [30] (link checked 8/8/2007). Full translated text available in Frazer (19
66).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: pp.1 2)
Jump up ^ Compiled from Sommer (1894: pp.xv11-xxxiv). Only texts mentioned elsew
here in this article are included by name.
Jump up ^ Dares, De excidio Trojae Historia, 12.
Jump up ^ Gantz (1993: p.39).
Jump up ^ Joseph of Exeter, Daretis :Phrygii Ilias De Bello Troiano iv. 61-4. Qu
otation from translation by A. G. Rigg available at [31].
Jump up ^ Quotation from excerpted translation in Gordon (1934: p.5-6).
Jump up ^ Guido delle Colonne, Historia Destructionis Troiae v, 63 66, translated
by E. M. Meek.
Jump up ^ Laud Troy Book l. 1864-8
Jump up ^ Guido delle Colonne Historia Destructionis Troiae 6. 294 301; Laud Troy
Book 2563-6. Lefevre The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, leaf 261 verso of C
axton printing.
Jump up ^ Historia Destructionis Troiae 15.34 43; Laud Troy Book 4755-66.
Jump up ^ "The wyse worthy Ector the secounde" Chaucer Troilus and Criseyde II.1
55; Lydgate Troy Book II.288.
Jump up ^ Boccaccio il Filostrato viii.27; Chaucer Troilus and Criseyde V.258; L
ydgate Troy Book 4.2041
Jump up ^ Arner (2010)
Jump up ^ Albert of Stade Troilus iv. 329 quoted in Boitani (1989: p.7).
Jump up ^ Guido Historia 15.293ff; Laud Troy Book 5131ff; Lefevre Recuyell leaf
290 verso; Lydgate Troy Book 3.1020ff.
Jump up ^ Eric Gelber: Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence, Art cr
itical.com, Spring 2002, [32]; link checked 5 August 2007
Jump up ^ Roberto Antonelli (1989: pp.22).
Jump up ^ Gordon (1934: p.8) translation.
Jump up ^ Roberto Antonelli (1989: pp.46 8).
Jump up ^ E. M. Meek translation ixx, 127 133.
Jump up ^ E. M. Meek translation xx 90-1.
Jump up ^ The Italian text is downloadable from [33]. Link checked 17 August 200
7. Translations are available in e.g. Havely, N.R. (ed.) Chaucer's Boccaccio wit
h some of Boccaccio's other writing, and in Gordon (1934) with the complete Chau
cer Troilus and extracts from Benot.
Jump up ^ Giulia Natali (p.51) "A Lyrical Version: Boccaccio's Filostrato" in Bo
itani (1989: pp.49 73) points out that the etymology for this meaning is faulty.
Jump up ^ There is some debate among academics on who this woman was. Nevill Cog
hill (1971: p.xvii) suggests Maria d'Aquino; Giulia Natali (1989: p.51) rejects
this idea and proposes that Boccaccio's beloved was someone called Giovanna.
Jump up ^ According to Frazer (1966: p.170), this is possibly influence by a sim
ilar change in Armannino of Bologna's Fiorita.
Jump up ^ Coghill (1971: p.xxii-xxiii) discussing Lewis (1936).
Jump up ^ The full text is available at [34], link checked 17 August 2007.
Jump up ^ Coghill (1971: pp.xvii-xviii).
Jump up ^ Frazer (1966: p.5).
Jump up ^ Windeatt (1989: p.128).
Jump up ^ Jennifer R. Goodman "Nature as destiny in Troilus and Criseyde", Style
, Fall, 1997
Jump up ^ Gordon (1934: p.xiii).
Jump up ^ Andrew (1989: p.91)
Jump up ^ Benson (1980: p.137) following John P. McCall "The Trojan Scene in Cha

ucer's Troilus, English Literary History, 29 (1962), 263.

Jump up ^ Benson (1989: p.158)
Jump up ^ Benson (1989: pp.154 6).
Jump up ^ Torti (1989: pp.173 4).
Jump up ^ C. David Benson "Critic and poet: what Lydgate and Henryson did to Cha
ucer's Troilus and Criseyde." at the Wayback Machine (archived October 27, 2009)
Modern Language Quarterly, March 1992, v.53 n.1 p.23(18)
Jump up ^ Benson (1980: p.143).
Jump up ^ Benson (1980: pp.147 8).
Jump up ^ Benson (1989: pp.159 60) referring to As You Like It iv. i. 99 100 and Tam
ing of the Shrew iv. i. 150.
Jump up ^ The play is available online at [35]. Link checked 17 August 2007.
Jump up ^ R. A. Foakes (1987: pp.11, 15); Oates (1966/7). Troilus is almost bear
dless as it is joked that he has fifty-one hairs on his chin, one white (for Pri
am) and the rest for Priam's sons (one forked for Paris) Act I Sc 2.
Jump up ^ Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida V. iii. 37. The mixture of realism an
d idealism in Troilus' character is discussed in Lombardo (1989: p.209) and Palm
er (1982: p.91).
Jump up ^ Foakes (1987: p.13)
Jump up ^ Lombardo (1989: p.14)
Jump up ^ Rufini (1989: pp. 246, 8) discusses and rejects Tilyard's claim (in E.
M.W. Tilyard, Shakespeare's Problem Plays London 1965 p.76) that Troilus matures
; Palmer (1982: 64 5) is equivocal, saying he is the only character who might have
been changed in the course of the play.
Jump up ^ Oates (1966/7)
Jump up ^ Palmer (1982: p.22ff).
Jump up ^ Lombardo (1989: pp.213 4).
Jump up ^ Lombardo (1989: p.204).
Jump up ^ Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida V. iv. 2 9.
Jump up ^ Throughout the play, Shakespeare draws attention to the parallels betw
een the Paris-Helen-Menelaus and the Diomedes-Cressida-Troilus triangles. Having
Troilus discover he himself is cuckolded on the threshold of the cuckolded Gree
k is just one example of this. (Rufini, 1989: p.259ff).
Jump up ^ Lombardo (1989: p.203)
Jump up ^ M. E. Novak (1984 p.521); Rufini (1989: pp.245 6).
Jump up ^ Dryden Preface to Troilus and Cressida in Novak (1984: p.226).
Jump up ^ Dryden, Troilus and Cressida IV, ii, 314
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.286).
Jump up ^ Keats, J. Endymion, ii. 1 13. Text available at [36]. Link checked 19 Au
gust 2007.
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989).
^ Jump up to: a b Boitani (1989: p.289)
Jump up ^ Foakes (1987: p.7)
Jump up ^ Shanower, E. (2001) Age of Bronze Volume 1 A Thousand Ships, Orange CA
, Image Comics: p.200.
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: pp.281 305)
Jump up ^ Frazer (1966: p.7)
Jump up ^ Br, S. (2007) review of Barry B. Powell, The War at Troy: a True Histor
y, Bryn Mawr Classical Review, available online at [37], link checked 18 August
2007.
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.290)
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.289).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.290).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.301)
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.304).
Jump up ^ Martin, E. (1993) "Victims or Perpetrators? Literary Responses to Wome
n's Roles in National Socialism" available at [38], link checked 18 August 2007.
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.17).
Jump up ^ No son of Priam with this or a similar name is discussed in sources on
Greek mythology such as those by Gantz or Graves. Nor does Ilios appear in Apol

lodorus' or Hyginus' lists of Priam's children.

Jump up ^ McCullough, C. (1998) The Song of Troy, London, Orion p. 402.
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: pp.297 300)
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: pp.287, 289, 294).
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.294).
Jump up ^ Walton/Hassall Troilus and Cressida quoted by Boitani(1989: p.297)
Jump up ^ Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida iii, ii, 7 11.
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.293)
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.288)
Jump up ^ Boitani (1989: p.292)
Jump up ^ The episode has been released on CD and as a novelisation. Most of the
original footage is lost. The script is available at [39]
Jump up ^ BBC website description compiled from Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Kei
th Topping (1995) Doctor Who: The Television Companion and David J. Howe and Ste
phen James Walker (1998, 2003) Doctor Who: The Television Companion. Link checke
d 19 August 2007.
Jump up ^ BBC website quoting Mark Wyman
Jump up ^ The Myth Makers Episode 3
Death of a Spy Sc.3.
Jump up ^ The Myth Makers Episode 3 Death of a Spy Sc.5.
Jump up ^ Shannon Patrick Sullivan Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
"The Myth Makers" page
Annotated bibliography[edit]
Andrew, M. (1989) "The Fall of Troy in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Troil
us and Criseyde ", in: Boitani (1989: pp. 75 93). Focuses on a comparison between
how the Gawain poet and Chaucer handle their themes.
Antonelli, R. (1989) "The Birth of Criseyde: an exemplary triangle; 'Classical'
Troilus and the question of love at the Anglo-Norman court", in: Boitani (1989:
pp. 21 48). Examination of Benot's and Guido's treatment of the love triangle.
Benson, C. D. (1980) The History of Troy in Middle English Literature, Woodbridg
e: D. S. Brewer. A study examining Guido's influence on writers on Troy up to Ly
dgate and Henryson. Troilus is discussed throughout.
Benson, C. D. (1989) "True Troilus and False Cresseid: the descent from tragedy"
in Boitani (1989: pp. 153 170). Examination of the Troilus and Cressida story in
the minor authors between Chaucer and Shakespeare.
Boitani, P. (ed.) (1989) The European Tragedy of Troilus, Oxford, Clarendon Pres
s ISBN 0-19-812970-X. This was the first full book to examine the development of
Troilus through the ages. The outer chapters are by Boitani reviewing the histo
ry of Troilus as a character from ancient to modern times. The middle chapters,
looking at the tale through the medieval and renaissance periods, are by other a
uthors with several examining Chaucer and Shakespeare.
Burgess, J. S. (2001) The Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the Epic Cycl
e, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN 0-8018-7890-X. Examination of
the Trojan War in archaic literary and artifact sources. Troilus mentioned in pa
ssing.
Carpenter, T. H. (1991) Art and Myth in Ancient Greece, London, Thames and Hudso
n. Contains roughly four pages (17 21) of text and, separately, fourteen illustrat
ions (figs. 20 22, 25 35) on Troilos in ancient art. ISBN 0-500-20236-2.
Coghill, N. (ed.) (1971: pp. xi xxvi) "Introduction" in: Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus
and Criseyde, London: Penguin ISBN 0-14-044239-1. Discusses Chaucer, his source
s and key themes in the Troilus. The main body of the book is a translation into
modern English by Coghill.
Foakes, R. A. (ed.) (1987) Troilus and Cressida (The New Penguin Shakespeare.) L
ondon: Penguin ISBN 0-14-070741-7. Annotated edition with introduction.
Frazer, R. M. (trans.) (1966) The Trojan War: the Chronicles of Dictys of Crete
and Dares the Phrygian. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. English translati
on of Dictys' Ephemeridos belli Trojani (pp. 17 130) and Dares' De excidio Trojae
historia (pp. 131 68) with Introduction (pp. 3 15) covering the theme of Troy in med
ieval literature and endnotes.
Gantz, T. (1993) Early Greek Myth. Baltimore: Johns Hopklins U. P. A standard so
urcebook on Greek myths. Multiple versions available. There are approximately si

x pages (597 603) plus notes discussing Troilos in Volume 2 of the two volume edit
ion. Page references are to the two volume 1996 Johns Hopkins Paperbacks edition
(ISBN 0-8018-5362-1).
Gordon, R. K. (1934) The Story of Troilus. London: J. M. Dent. (Dutton Paperback
ed. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1964.) This book has been reprinted by various publ
ishers. It contains a translated selection from Le Roman de Troie, a full transl
ation of Il filostrato and the unmodernised texts of Troilus and Criseyde and Th
e Testament of Cresseid. Page references are to the 1995 printing by University
of Toronto Press and the Medieval Academy of America (ISBN 0-8020-6368-3).
Graves, R. (1955) The Greek Myths. Another standard sourcebook available in many
editions. Troilus is discussed in Volume 2 of the two volume version. Page refe
rences are to the 1990 Penguin printing of the 1960 revision (ISBN 0-14-001027-0
).
Lewis, C. S. (1936) The Allegory of Love. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Influential w
ork on the literature of courtly love, including Chaucer's Troilus.
Lombardo, A. (1989) "Fragments and Scraps: Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida" i
n Boitani (1989: pp. 199 217). Sets the cynical tone of Troilus in the context of
changes both in the world and the theatre.
Lyder, T. D. (2010) "Chaucer's second Hector: the triumphs of Diomede and the po
ssibility of epic in Troilus and Criseyde. (Critical essay)", Medium Aevum, Marc
h 22, 2010, Accessed through Highbeam, August 30, 2012 (subscription required).
March, J. (1998) Dictionary of Classical Mythology. London: Cassell. ISBN 0-30434626-8 Illustrated dictionary with Troilus covered in one page. Page references
are to 1998 hardback edition.
Natali, G. (1989) "A Lyrical Version: Boccaccio's Filostrato", in: Boitani (1989
: pp. 49 73). An examination of the Filostrato in context.
Novak, M. E (ed.) (1984) The Works of John Dryden: Volume XIII Plays: All for Lo
ve; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida. Berkeley: University of California Press ISBN
0-520-05124-6. Volume in complete edition with annotated texts and commentaries
.
Oates, J. O. (1966/7) "The Tragedy of Existence: Shakespeare's Troilus and Cress
ida" by Joyce Carol Oates. Originally published as two separate essays, in Philo
logical Quarterly, Spring 1967, and Shakespeare Quarterly, Spring 1966. Availabl
e online at [51] (Checked 17 August 2007).
Palmer, K. (ed.) (1982) Troilus and Cressida. (The Arden Shakespeare.) London: M
ethuen. Edition of the play as part of respected series, with extensive notes, a
ppendices and 93 page introduction. References are to 1997 printing by Thomas Ne
lson & Sons, London (ISBN 0-17-443479-0).
Rufini, S. (1989) "'To Make that Maxim Good': Dryden's Shakespeare", in: Boitani
(1989: pp. 243 80). Discussion of Dryden's remodeling of Troilus.
Sommer, H. O. (ed.) (1894) The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye: written in Fr
ench by Raoul Lefvre; translated and printed by William Caxton (about A.D. 1474);
the first English printed book, now faithfully reproduced, with a critical intr
oduction, index and glossary and eight pages in photographic facsimile. London:
David Nutt. Edition of Caxton translation of Lefevre with introduction of 157 pa
ges. Page references are to AMS Press 1973 reprinting (ISBN 0-404-56624-3).
Sommerstein, A. H., Fitzpatrick, D. & Talby, T. (2007) Sophocles: Selected Fragm
entary Plays. Oxford: Aris and Phillips (ISBN 0-85668-766-9). This is a product
of the University of Nottingham's project on Sophocles' fragmentary plays. The b
ook contains a 52-page chapter (pp. 196 247) on the Troilos, including the Greek t
ext with translation and commentary of the few words and phrases known to come f
rom the play. The introduction to this chapter includes approximately seven page
s on the literary and artistic background on Troilus plus discussion and a putat
ive reconstruction of the plot of the play itself. This, the chapter on the Poly
xene, where Troilus is also discussed, and the general introduction to the book
are all solely by Sommerstein and therefore he alone is referenced above.
Torti, A. (1989) "From 'History' to 'Tragedy': The Story of Troilus and Criseyde
in Lydgate's Troy Book and Henryson's Testament of Cresseid", in: Boitani (1989
: pp. 171 97). Examination of the two most important authors considering the love
story between Chaucer and Shakespeare.

Windeatt, B. (1989) "Classical and Medieval Elements in Chaucer's Troilus", in:

Boitani (1989: p. 111 131)
Woodford, S. (1993) The Trojan War in Ancient Art. Ithaca: Cornell University Pr
ess ISBN 0-7156-2468-7. Contains approximately four illustrated pages (55 59) on T
roilos in ancient art.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Troilus.
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica article Trolus.
List of pictures of Troilus at Perseus Project: Includes sections from the Franoi
s Vase. The site holds an extensive classical collection including the texts of
both primary and secondary sources on classical topics. Several of the texts men
tioned here are available there in the original language and with English transl
ation. A smaller Renaissance collection contains the text of the Shakespeare Tro
ilus and Cressida.
Publicly accessible images of ambush and pursuit in the Beazley Archive: Many ot
her images of Troilus on the site are accessible for academic or research purpos
es.
The Development of Attic Black-Figure by J. D. Beazley discusses several picture
s of Troilos. Heavily illustrated in black and white.
[hide] v t e
Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde
Characters
Troilus Cressida Achilles Antenor Calchas Diomede Helen Pandarus Priam Cassandra
Hector Paris Deiphobus
Source
Il Filostrato (12th century) Roman de Troie (12th century)
Operas
Troilus and Cressida (1954)
Plays
Troilus and Cressida (1602)
Poetry
"The Testament of Cresseid" (15th century)
Linguistic contributions
Words first used in The Oak and the Reed "The pot calling the kettle black" Cowb
ell "At sixes and sevens"
Related
Sir Giles Goosecap "To Her Inconstant Lover" Il Canzoniere Amoryus and Cleopes
Authority control
WorldCat Identities VIAF: 30334623 GND: 118869604
Categories: Medieval literatureTroilus and CressidaMale Shakespearean characters
TrojansPeople of the Trojan WarPederastic heroes and deitiesFictional princesOff
spring of ApolloCharacters in poems
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