It is a fault in art because it is impossible to motive it in a few
lines. The fact of the gift is bad enough; without explanation it is
horrible. For this and other reasons I infer that Shakespeare took the
fact from his own experience: he had suffered, it seems to me, from some
such traitorism on the part of his mistress, or he ascribed to Mary
Fitton some traitorism of his own.
In sonnet 122 he finds weighty excuse for having given away the
table-book which his friend had given to him. His own confessed
shortcoming might have taught him to exercise more lenient judgment
towards his frail love.
But when Shakespeare wrote "Troilus and Cressida" a passion of
bitterness possessed him; he not only vilified Cressida but all the
world, Agamemnon, Nestor, Achilles, Ajax; he seems indeed to have taken
more pleasure in the railing of Thersites than in any other part of the
work except the scourging of Cressida. He shocks us by the picture of
Achilles and his myrmidons murdering Hector when they come upon him
unarmed.
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