Agamemnon

Play

Troilus and Cressida

Summary

The Greek commander-in-chief whose leadership of the seven-year siege is visibly failing. His opening speech is a study in elaborate circumlocution that says very little, and Ulysses's willingness to scheme around him rather than through him speaks to his ineffectiveness. He is not villainous, merely pompous — a figure-head whose authority is undermined by the fractious individualism of his own camp.

Notable Quotations

"Checks and disasters / Grow in the veins of actions highest reared, / As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, / Infects the sound pine." *(I.iii)*

Cross-references

• Troilus and Cressida — the play
• Tragedies
• character_ulysses — the strategist who works around his failings
• character_achilles_tc — the warrior who defies his authority
• character_nestor_tc — his aged counselor