Troilus and Cressida is one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” characterized by its duality of tone as it jumps from bawdy comedic to dark tragedy. The plot was sourced from two epic poems: Homer’s Iliad is the source of the play’s Greek mythological references, the Trojan War, and the war’s key figures, while Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde is the source of Troilus’s love affair with a Trojan woman.

At the beginning of Troilus and Cressida, seven years have passed since the start of the Trojan war. Achilles refuses to fight due to his hurt pride, but one day, the Trojan hero Hector challenges the Greeks to one-on-one combat.

On the other side of the city walls, the Trojan Prince Troilus is madly in love with Cressida, and his heartache makes it difficult for him to fight. Pandarus, Troilus’s close friend and Cressida’s uncle, tries to bring the couple together, but Cressida’s father has plans to use her as a bargaining chip in the siege.

This version of the book is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wright’s 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition.