Troilus and Cressida Time Quotes

Shakespeare knows he's got a big challenge ahead of him in this play. How do you cram the events of a ten-year Trojan War into a two-hour play? Well, you don't. That's why Shakespeare "leaps" over the first seven years of warfare and starts his story "in the middle" of the action. Starting a story like this is a technique called in medias res (in the middle of things). One of the most famous examples of beginning in medias res is in Homer's Iliad, which is Shakespeare's main source for this play.

Shakespeare never lets us forget that the Trojan War has been a long, drawn out series of battles that's resulted in a "loss" of "time," not to mention money, human lives, and honor. You know. Like a lot of wars.

Okay, time for something important. Here, Troilus says that fighting to keep Helen is going to bring the Trojans "honor and renown" that will make them famous "in time to come." Why is this important? Because when characters look to the future and predict how their actions will make the Greeks and Trojans go down in history, Shakespeare is drawing our attention to the process of myth making. P.S. The events of the play go down in just four days.

This is where Ulysses says that nobody thinks Achilles is awesome anymore because the guy hasn't performed any valiant deeds on the battlefield lately. The imagery Ulysses uses is pretty astonishing in this passage. He describes Time as though it's a huge, devouring monster that eats up a warrior's past "good deeds." Yikes! Ulysses is basically saying something like this: "Tick-tock, Achilles. You better get back on the battlefield ASAP before everyone forgets you and there's nothing left of your honor."

As he urges Achilles to get back on the battlefield before everyone forgets his past heroic deeds, Ulysses really ups the imagery. Here, he describes Time as a person "with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly." The idea is that Time is just like a fickle person who goes through friends or lovers faster than we change our socks. In this way, Time is portrayed as an unfaithful person. (Kind of like Cressida, right?) There's also a play here on the famous Latin phrase "tempus fugit," or "time flies."

Human morality is 100%. In other words, all humans share the same destiny—death. It's only a matter of time before we all die, regardless of how beautiful, smart, rich, or healthy we are. What's interesting about this passage is how "time" is described as being "envious and calumniating," as if "time" is a jealous person who is out to destroy the lives and reputations of all mankind. Pretty scary, don't you think?

Don't you hate it when your one-night stand won't even make you breakfast in the morning? Even though it's clear that Troilus isn't happy about leaving, he's still pretty eager to get on with his "busy day," despite the fact that he says the night has "been too brief."

Cressida sees her love as something that's strong enough to resist "Time" or "death," even if her physical body will eventually grow old and die. This is ironic, of course, because she betrays Troilus about a nanosecond after she promises she'll be true to him forever. Still, the idea that love is timeless is pretty appealing.

When Cressida is taken away from him, Troilus declares that time has robbed him of his love. Later, when he finds out that she is unfaithful to him, he says "Never did young man fancy / with so external and so fixed a soul" (5.2.166-167). It almost seems like Troilus thinks that time can make Cressida into two different people—the faithful girl of the past and the unfaithful girl of the present.

Because old Nestor has "seen the time," (he's super old), he's portrayed as a storehouse of history (a.k.a. a "chronicle"). As such, he's a figure to be admired, respected, and cherished—but that doesn't mean they're not going to make fun of the way he strokes his beard.

Here, Hector drops in a famous Latin proverb: finis coronat opus, which means "the end crowns the work," but with a little twist. He says that the "end" is brought about by Time (not the gods, fate, or some other outside force)—as if they're moving toward an inevitable fate that cannot be avoided. Hm, almost makes you wonder why you bother getting up in the morning.