Cressida: The Woman History Blamed

Cressida has been a byword for female faithlessness since Chaucer's version of her story. Shakespeare's play complicates the picture. She is sharp, self-aware, and surrounded by men who treat her as an exchangeable commodity.

She knows exactly what she is doing when she plays hard to get with Troilus: in soliloquy she says men value what they cannot have. She is right. She is also genuinely in love with him, which makes the subsequent betrayal more painful.

She is sent to the Greek camp as part of a prisoner exchange, not consulted, just handed over. In the Greek camp she is immediately kissed by a series of Greek commanders. Her adaptation to Diomedes is cruel to Troilus, but the play does not pretend her position was comfortable.