One or two incidental difficulties must be settled before we pass to a
greater play.
"Troilus and Cressida" has always been regarded as a sort of enigma.
Professor Dowden asks: "With what intention and in what spirit did
Shakespeare write this strange comedy? All the Greek heroes who fought
against Troy are pitilessly exposed to ridicule?" And from this fact and
the bitterness of "Timon" some German critics have drawn the inference
that Shakespeare was incapable of comprehending Greek life, and that
indeed he only realized his Romans so perfectly because the Roman was
very like the Briton in his mastery of practical affairs, of the details
of administration and of government. This is an excellent instance of
German prejudice. No one could have been better fitted than Shakespeare
to understand Greek civilization and Greek art with its supreme love of
plastic beauty, but his master Plutarch gave him far better pictures of
Roman life than of Greek life, partly because Plutarch lived in the time
of Roman domination and partly because he was in far closer sympathy
with the masters of practical affairs than with artists in stone like
Phidias or artists in thought like Plato.
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