We have yet other sources, Latin, French, and English, for the details of the drama. From Ovid's Metamorphoses, for example (which Shakespeare must have known from childhood), he took the idea of making Ajax almost an idiot in his conceited stupidity. It is in the third book of the Metamorphoses that Ulysses, fighting with Ajax for Achilles' weapon, overwhelms his opponent with biting sarcasms.[3] Shakespeare found the name of Thersites in the same book, with a word concerning his rôle as lampooner of princes.
We may doubt whether Shakespeare knew Lydgate's Book of Troy. Most of his details with regard to the siege are taken from an old writing translated from the French and published by Wynkyn de Worde in 1503. Here, for example, is the parade of heroes, the talk of King Neoptolemus being no son of Achilles, and the corrupted names of the six gates of Troy—Dardane, Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troyen, and Antenorides. Here also he would find the name of Hectors horse, Galathea, the archer who calls upon the Greeks, the bastard Margarelon, Cassandra's warning to Hector, the glove Cressida gives away, and Troilus's idea that a man is not called upon to be merciful in war, but should take a victory as he may.[4]
We cannot tell if Shakespeare was further indebted to some old dramatic writings, whereof only the names have survived to us. In 1515, a "Komedy" called the Story of Troylus and Pandor was played before Henry VIII. On New Year's Day, 1572, a play about Ajax and Ulisses was performed at Windsor Castle, and another in 1584 concerning Agamemnon and Ulisses.[5] In Henslowe's Daybook for April and May 1599 we see that the poets Dekker and Henry Chettle (Dickers and Harey Cheattel, in his amusing orthography) wrote a piece, at his invitation, for the Lord Admiral's troupe, Troeyles and creasseday. In May he lends them a sum of money on it, changing its title to A tragedy about Agamemnon. It is finally entered at the Stationers' Hall in February 1603 as a piece entitled Troilus and Cresseda, "as it was played by the Lord Chamberlain's men"[6] (Shakespeare's company). The fact that in Shakespeare's drama, as we have it, rhyme is introduced in various parts of the dialogue, and several other details of versification, seems to point to the possibility that the so-called piece was in reality Shakespeare's first sketch of the play. It is one of Fleay's tediously worked out theories that the drama was produced in three different parts, with an interval of from twelve to thirteen years between each. He is quite regardless of the fact that the parts are absolutely inseparable, and is evidently entirely innocent of the manner of growth of poems. He also totally ignores such important evidence as that of the preface to the oldest edition, 1609, which positively asserts that the piece has never hitherto been played. It is, of course, possible that this edition, like most of its kind, was unauthorised, but even then the writer of the preface would scarcely lie about a fact which could be so easily verified, and which, moreover, he was not in the least interested in falsifying.
[1] Troilus says to him:
"Non m'hai piccola cosa tu donata
Ne me a piccola cosa donato hai
La vita mia ti fia sempre obligata
In l'hai da morte in via suscitata."
[2] Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespearegesellschaft, iii, 252, and vi. 169. Francesco de Sanctis: Historia della letterature italiana, i. 308.
"Huic modo ne prosit, quod, uti est, hebes esse, videtur.
Artis opus tantæ rudis et sine pectore miles
Indueret?
Ajacis stolidi Danais Sollertia prosit
Tu vires sine mente geris, mihi cura futuri
Tu pugnare potes, pugnandi tempora mecum
Eligit Atrides. In tantum corpore prodes."
Met. xiii. 135, 290, 327, 360.
[4] Halliwell-Phillips: Memoranda on Troilus and Cressida. 1880. (Only twenty copies).