Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 September 2009
I have an excellent thought: if some fifty of the Grecians that were crammed in the horse belly had eaten garlic, do you not think the Trojans might have smelt out their knavery?
Sly, in Webster's Induction to The Malcontent (1604)We are so asotted with these delights, so blinded with the love, and drunken with the sweetness of these vanities, that greedily we flock together, and with our brainsick assemblies not unlike to the Troyans hale in the horse, whose bowels have been many times gaged with the sword of his truth …
Stephen Gosson on London's playhouses, in Plays Confuted (1582)When, in Twelfth Night (1601), one coin already well in hand, Feste begs another of Viola, he applies a commercial gloss to the Troilus and Cressida legend:
FESTE. Would not a pair of these have bred, sir?
VIOLA. Yes, being kept together, and put to use.
FESTE. I would play Lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir, to bring a Cressida to this Troilus.
VIOLA. I understand you, sir. 'Tis well begg'd.
FESTE. The matter, I hope, is not great, sir – begging but a beggar:
Cressida was a beggar.
(3.1.49–55)In personifying the two coins – the one as Troilus, the other Cressida – and endowing them with desires and traits of their own, Feste participates in what I have described in the preceding pages as the tendency of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama to objectify the personal.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.