How we cite our quotes: (Act.Scene.Line)
Quote #7
She is a theme of honor and renown, A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds, Whose present courage may beat down our foes, And fame in time to come canonize us; (2.2.199-201)
Hang on a tic. In a previous passage, didn't we just hear Troilus say that Helen wasn't worth fighting for? Now he's arguing the Trojans should keep fighting? Okay. Troilus is a bit of a hypocrite. (So is just about everyone else in this play.) But what's even more interesting to us is the fact that Troilus says Helen is a "theme of honor." Translation: Helen is just an excuse for the Trojans to keep fighting in order to gain "honor and renown" by carrying out "valiant and magnanimous deeds" on the battlefield. In other words, Helen is really beside the point. Gee, women can't do anything right in this play.
Quote #8
Here is such patchery, such juggling and such knavery! all the argument is a cuckold and a whore; a good quarrel to draw emulous factions and bleed to death upon. (2.3.70-73)
Thersites is pretty crude when he reduces the origins of the Trojan war to "a cuckold and a whore" (Menelaus and Helen). And, although nobody else in this play is quite as vile and nasty and Thersites, this is an argument we hear over and over throughout Troilus and Cressida. We're starting to wonder if Thersites is supposed to be the play's official spokesperson.
Quote #9
The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull! now, dog! 'Loo, Paris, 'loo! now my double- henned sparrow! 'loo, Paris, 'loo! The bull has the game: ware horns, ho! (5.7.9-12)
When Thersites describes the man-to-man combat between Paris ("the cuckold maker") and Menelaus ("the cuckold"), he describes the action as though it's a bull-baiting contest. Bull-baiting was an Elizabethan blood sport that involved setting a pack of dogs on a chained up bull. (Kind of like bear-baiting, except … with a bull.) So, basically, Thersites reduces the epic battlefield to a bull-baiting arena. In the process, he reduces the actions of so-called heroic warriors to the actions of, well, animals.