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Cressida is a Trojan woman who starts the play already in a somewhat precarious political position. Her father, the renowned seer Calchas, has recently defected to the Greeks on account of a vision he had of Troy’s inevitable fall. Left behind in Troy under the care of her uncle Pandarus, Cressida’s future is uncertain. Added to the political uncertainty is the emerging romance between her and the Trojan prince, Troilus. Though his intense desire for her is clear as day, Cressida cunningly keeps her affection for him under wraps—at once an act of self-protection and an erotic strategy where anticipation sweetens their eventual coupling. Though audiences already familiar with the story would expect her coming infidelity and hence be primed to despise her, Shakespeare works to establish sympathy for her in the play’s early acts. Not only is she shrewdly aware of her precarious political position, but she’s also steadfast in her pledges of love for Troilus. So certain is she that she will stay true to Troilus that she invents a curse that can be wielded against her in the event of her apparently impossible infidelity: “As false as Cressid” (3.3.198).
Of course, political dealings soon trouble her pledge. The very next scene features Calchas convincing the Greek leaders to trade the Trojan captive Antenor for his daughter, and this trade is the central action of act 4. Like Helen, to whom she is a symbolic parallel, Cressida becomes a pawn. Yet her trade in exchange for Antenor also shows that Cressida doesn’t have the same political value as Helen, on whose account the Trojan War has already been raging for seven years. In becoming a spoil of war in this way, Cressida is set up for her eventual fall. That said, Cressida isn’t innocent when it comes to her betrayal of Troilus. One of the most striking features of her arc in the play is the marked shift in her behavior once she reaches the Greek camp. Immediately upon arriving, she adopts a coquettish demeanor, flirting with the Greek leaders and kissing each in turn. This behavior occasions Ulysses’s disparaging comment: “Set [these actions] down / For sluttish spoils of opportunity / And daughters of the game” (4.5.70–72). In other words, he wants it on record that Cressida is little more than a prostitute.
