#text: troilus and cressida

[isabelpsaroslunnen]

As an early modernist, it's always bizarre to see so much writing advice along the lines of "I just wish more writers read broadly enough to understand the fundamental distinctiveness of original characters and story lines in fiction writing, the thing that separates true literature from all other forms of fiction writing..."

I mean, I wish people read broadly enough to understand that the value for originality as the foremost defining quality of publishable fiction is bound up in deeply modern assumptions driven by capitalism and intellectual property law, but none of us get everything we want, I guess!

...But seriously, even if you restrict yourself to English-language literature, please read some fiction written prior to 1700 before forming arguments about the fundamental nature of fictional literature through all of time and space. You don't get Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida without Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, and you don't get Chaucer's Criseyde without Boccaccio's.

This isn't simply loose inspiration in the way that all things have inspirations, but active engagement with a very specific character and plot none of them had invented. Chaucer's version of Criseyde in particular is very much in dialogue with other iterations of her, and the sympathy and nuance he brings to the character really rewards familiarity with the Cressida figure as usually depicted—a familiarity he could, at the time, expect his audience to have.

That kind of intertextuality was extremely normalized at the time as a general rule, not only when it came to specific works or authors, and would be so for centuries afterwards. In fact, fiction writing involving pre-existing characters and plots was a common element of fiction written in English for far longer than capitalism has existed. We are still closer in time to when Shakespeare was writing Troilus and Cressida than he was to the medieval source of the story.

[britneyshakespeare]

i'm very interested what ppl find to be the harder shakespeare plays and which they found to be easier. bc i was googling out of curiosity and i found a sparknotes article (link if you're curious) that ranked ten of the most commonly-read plays on difficulty and it put king lear kinda down low whereas it put julius caesar pretty high because of the politics/complicated conflicts. that kind of baffled me because julius caesar was the first tragedy i read outside of the classroom and i found it very approachable; it's one i often recommend to people trying to get into shakespeare because the plot is already familiar to most ppl and you can just enjoy the poetry and how shakespeare chooses to characterize these figures. on the other hand i read king lear a few years later in my shakespeare journey, and to be honest i still kind of have a hard time with lear. maybe i just don't connect with it on some level; i'm not sure. it's not a very tightly-organized play where the action is as centered as in the other tragedies like hamlet or macbeth. that's certainly a me thing and maybe that'll change with age. but i'm always a little surprised when i find someone's experience with the plays so much different than mine.

anyway if you're reading this feel free to reblog and tag or comment which shakespeare plays you found yourself falling into most naturally and which worlds you felt like you had to force yourself into. i'm interested in what ppl feel on this subject

[autistic-ophelia]

God I have this whole essay idea about comparing t/s/o/a (censored because I don’t want to be annoying in their tag) to Troilus and Cressida as queer texts that play with the gender roles of Ancient Greek relationships and how the text from 1602 arguably does queerness more authentically than the one from 2011. The problem is that the thought of rereading mm’s book and talking about it at length is…not fun.

[butchhamlet]

i said i was going to arrange a list of my favorite articles/criticism about shakespeare, so here’s my first little roundup! obligatory disclaimer that i don’t necessarily agree with or endorse every single point of view in each word of these articles, but they scratch my brain. will add to this list as i continue reading, and feel free to add your own favorites in the reblogs! :]

essays

Is Shakespeare For Everyone? by Austin Tichenor (a basic examination of that question)

Interrogating the Shakespeare System by Madeline Sayet (counterpoint/parallel to the above; on Shakespeare’s place in, and status as, imperialism)

Shakespeare in the Bush by Laura Bohannan (also a good parallel to the above; on whether Shakespeare is really culturally “universal”)

The Unified Theory of Ophelia: On Women, Writing, and Mental Illness ("I was trying to make sense of the different ways men and women related to Ophelia. Women seemed to invoke her like a patron saint; men seemed mostly interested in fetishizing her flowery, waterlogged corpse.”)

Hamlet Is a Suicide Text—It’s Time to Teach It Like One (on teaching shakespeare plays about suicide to high schoolers)

Commuting With Shylock by Dara Horn (on listening to MoV with a ten-year-old son, as modern jewish people, to look at that eternal question of Is This Play Antisemitic?)

All That Glisters is Not Gold (NPR episode, on whether it’s possible to perform othello, taming of the shrew, & merchant to do good instead of harm)

academic articles

the Norton Shakespeare’s intro to the Merchant of Venice (apologies about the highlights here; they are not mine; i scanned this from my rented copy)

the Norton Shakespeare’s intro to Henry the Fourth part 1 (and apologies for the angled page scans on this one; see above)

Richard II: A Modern Perspective by Harry Berger Jr (this is the article that made me understand richard ii)

Hamlet’s Older Brother (“Hamlet and Prince Hal are in the same situation, the distinction resting roughly on the difference between the problem of killing a king and the problem of becoming one. ... Hamlet is literature’s Mona Lisa, and Hal is the preliminary study for it.”)

Egyptian Queens and Male Reviewers: Sexist Attitudes in Antony & Cleopatra Criticism (about more than just reviewers; my favorite deconstruction of shakespeare’s cleopatra in general)

Strange Flesh: Antony and Cleopatra and the Story of the Dissolving Warrior (��If Troilus and Cressida is [Shakespeare’s] vision of a world in which masculinity must be enacted in order to exist, Antony and Cleopatra is his vision of a world in which masculinity not only must be enacted, but simply cannot be enacted, his vision of a world in which this particular performance has broken down.”)

misc

Elegy of Fortinbras by Zbigniew Herbert (poem that makes me fucking insane)

Dirtbag Henry IV (what it sounds like.)

Cleopatra and Antony by Linda Bamber (what if a&c... was good.)

[lavenite]

ok actually this is a really interesting interpretation. cressida is basically saying that - dont worry its fine. ill go but ill be back soon, no longer than a week and we can be together again. which is obviously not true though its hard to tell if she actually Believes what shes saying or this is just to comfort troilus.

SCREAM? is this a romeo and juliet reference...? basically he came her house after she was just talking about dying and saw her pale on the couch. thought she died and was going to kill himself when she woke up. well it seems that 'romeo and juliet' was solidifyed into an actual story around 1560 something but existed as a folktale long before that. so this is probably some allusion to that story lol

[babyrdie]

So you don't think tsoa mischaracterized Patroclus? (same anon who sent the ask about kindness)

Since I don't want to attract negative attention, I'm going to shorten the post to get less attention lol read the answer below the continue reading bar.

Oh no, don't get the wrong impression. I'm of the opinion that TSOA did mischaracterize Patroclus lol he looks like a modern character, not an Ancient Greek character. Yes, Patroclus is kind, as I made a whole post arguing for it, but he's not a modern kind like in TSOA.

He is also not an integral healer, in The Iliad he is only healing people because the usual healers are unable to do so and this is obvious in Nestor's speech (Book 11). Even if he were a healer, it has nothing to do with being a warrior, since Machaon and Polydarius are the doctors of the Achaeans and both fight. Achilles taught Patroclus to heal in mythology and well…Achilles very obviously fights. Patroclus was kind to Briseis according to what she says (Book 19), but that doesn't make him anti-slavery. He had a slave girl, Iphis (Book 9).

Other sources also point to this, just look at how Pindar (Olympic Ode) and Philostrathus (Heroica) make Patroclus' martial aspect quite clear. Incidentally, do you know the lost plays of Aeschylus that are famous for containing Patrochilles? Aristophanes in Frogs refers to Aeschylus having written Patroclus and Teucer as men with great deeds. In the Suda, a Byzantine encyclopedia, Patroclus is also considered a warrior. Plutarch also writes Patroclus in a dual way. In many other sources, such as Hesiod and Quintus, Patroclus' deeds are emphasized. Even The Iliad scholia, which highlights Patroclus' kindness several times, also highlights his martial achievements.

Patroclus being kind is a given, but that doesn't mean he was kind in the "I hate violence, I don't like fighting, I'm a feminist, I'm anti-slavery, my greatest pleasure is healing people" kind of way. That's a very modern kind of "masculine" kindness. He's kind in the sense that he's patient, empathetic, and diplomatic. That was more like the ancient kind of "masculine" kindness. (Also: "masculine" because the genre affects. In the case of Ancient Greece, the kindness of a man specifically socialized to be a warrior is not the same as that expected of a maiden, for example.)

Furthermore, it's kind of pointless to try to argue that TSOA's Patroclus is faithful to The Iliad's Patroclus when the author herself admitted that while the idea of ​​him being kind was from The Iliad, the idea of ​​him hating violence was Shakespeare's. According to her:

Q: How much of the characters’ personalities came directly from Homer’s text and how much from your imagination? A: It depends on the character. Homer was always a guide, but I also freely drew on other influences and my own imagination. Thetis, Achilles’ sea-nymph mother, is not so angry and uncompromising in the Iliad as she is in my version, but I was led there by her troubled relationship to mortals, based on her forced marriage to Peleus. Patroclus’s gentleness and kindness were drawn from hints given by Homer, but his horror of violence came from my reading of his psychological backstory, and was also partially inspired by Shakespeare’s portrait of him in Troilus and Cressida as more lover than fighter. I knew my Odysseus would be wily, of course, but I enjoyed finding new ways to set that wiliness in motion, particularly in opposition to the idealistic, earnest Patroclus.

In fact, she has even explained that directing Troilus and Cressida (the play) was what inspired her to start writing the book.

Q: When did you first have the idea to write The Song of Achilles? A: I began writing the novel the summer after I graduated from University, before starting my Master’s in Classics. I had just finished directing a production of Troilus and Cressida, which was a complete revelation for me. Up until then, I had only interacted with these stories from an academic perspective, but working with Shakespeare’s characters inspired me to approach them creatively as well. I opened my laptop and Patroclus’ voice was there. Of course, none of those initial sentences survived the editing process. From idea to final execution was ten years.

She has also made clear the two reasons for writing Patroclus this way. One reason is that she wanted to explain why Achilles loved him so much and the other is that she wanted to make him relatable.

Q: Patroclus is very elusive in The Iliad – what made you decide to make him the narrator of your book? A: It was that elusiveness which intrigued me. Achilles’ all-consuming, obliterating grief for Patroclus’ death is the linchpin of the entire Iliad, yet Patroclus spends most of the poem in the background. It seemed to me a great mystery. Who was this man who could undo Achilles? Why was he so essential and beloved? Writing the book was my way of finding an answer to that question.

The central inspiration behind the book is the terrible moment in the Iliad when Achilles hears about Patroclus’ death. His reaction is shocking in its intensity. The great half-god warrior—who carelessly defies rules, and condemns a whole army to death—comes completely unglued, desperate with grief and rage. I wanted to understand what it was about Patroclus and their relationship that could create that kind of crisis. Although Homer tells us what his characters do, he doesn’t tell us much of why they do it. Who was Achilles? And why did he love Patroclus so much? Writing the novel was my way of answering that question.

In writing this novel, I thought a lot about personal responsibility. Patroclus is not an epic person, the way Achilles is. He’s an “ordinary” man. But he has more power than he thinks, and the moments where he reaches out to others and offers what he sees as his very modest assistance have huge positive ramifications. Most of us aren’t Achilles—but we can still be Patroclus. What does it mean to try to be an ethical person in a violent world?

Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with liking TSOA, but trying to argue that TSOA's Patroclus is true to the mythological character is just… what's the point? Why not appreciate TSOA as something different instead of pretending that the ancient Greeks saw Patroclus the way Madeline does? They didn't, just read the texts. Miller has openly said that the idea of ​​him not being a warrior came from Troilus and Cressida, she KNOWS he's not like that in The Iliad. So things like "well, he didn't like violence in The Iliad"… man, not even the author claimed that. It's all in your head. In trying to defend her, you're twisting her words. She also made it clear that she wanted to make Patroclus relatable, which would be difficult using the usual characterization when the book's audience is very young. She also stated more than once that she wanted to explain Achilles' love for him and probably, in her mind, a lovable person is someone with modern characteristics because she is a modern person.

There is no point in saying "well, Miller was faithfully following The Iliad and she was trying to be entirely consistent with the Homeric Patroclus" when the author has already made it clear that NO, she wasn't. She did say that The Iliad was an important source, but she made it clear that it wasn't the only one. She made it clear that the characterization of Patroclus is also influenced by Shakespeare and also, in her words, "my own imagination".

Honestly, just admit that you like Patroclus in TSOA and that's fine. You don't have to pretend he's the same way the ancient Greeks imagined him to be, you have the option to like both the mythological version and the TSOA version instead of pretending they follow the same idea.

I don't even know why people get defensive about the possibility of TSOA Patroclus not being like Myth Patroclus, that wouldn't be the first change. For example:

Menoetius was never said to be abusive. In fact, he cared about Patroclus. In the Iliad, he counsels Patroclus before he goes to war. Other sources say that Achilles promised Menoetius that he would bring Patroclus back from war.

Thetis wasn't an abusive mother, something that the author herself makes clear that she knows she wasn't (it's in one of the interview excerpts I posted here, by the way)

In Greek mythology Patroclus wasn't taught by Chiron, but by Achilles (in the Roman mythology, though, he was taught by Chiron)

Deidamia wasn't an annoying and insistent girl. She also never forced herself on Achilles. The relationship was either consensual or Achilles was the one who forced himself on her.

Iphigenia didn't die passively, she found out about the plan beforehand and was verbal about it.

Achilles didn't avoid Briseis. She was his sex slave and he used her. He had Diomede too.

Agamemnon wasn't considered superstitious, his belief in the gods was an ideal belief for a leader at the time. This, however, did not prevent him from displeasing gods, as is the case with Apollo.

Patroclus never had to convince Agamemnon not to rape Briseis. Agamemnon decided not to do so, probably because he knew that doing so would decrease his chances of making peace with Achilles.

Patroclus didn't kill Sarpedon as some sort of accident while desperately trying to defend himself, he decided to attack Sarpedon and then still wanted to dishonor his body.

Achilles didn't just kill Penthesilea and that was it. He fell in love with her in this process too.

Neoptolemus never prevented the union of Achilles and Patroclus. The burial was also never just Achilles and Patroclus, it also had Antilochus.

Neoptolemus didn't randomly decide to kill Polyxena because he thought it would be honorable, Achilles asked him to do it and then he did.

Neoptolemus didn't try to rape Hermione and was killed by Orestes for it. He was literally her husband and she was even jealous of him. Orestes killed him because Hermione was already promised to him before, but Menelaus gave her to Neoptolemus anyway.

There are so many, so many changes. Why is the idea of ​​her changing Patroclus so absurd? She has already changed other things. And you can like the changes, you just can't claim that they aren't changes, that they're part of the original material. I love Hades, but you won't find me claiming that Achilles regretted everything he did after death or that Theseus and the Minotaur became best friends in the original sources. I like that Briseis has a strong personality in TSOA, but I'm not going to pretend and act like the ancient Greeks wrote her that way.

But anyway, that's my opinion and I don't think it's going to change. I've read several arguments, but none of them seem to really make sense.

[uwmspeccoll]

Shakespeare Weekend

This weekend we return to Nicholas Rowe’s (1674-1718) The Work of Mr. William Shakespear; in Six Volumes. Published in London in 1709 by Jacob Tonson (1655–1736), this second edition holds an important place within Shakespearean publication history. The Work of Mr. William Shakespear; in Six Volumes is recognized as the first octavo edition, the first illustrated edition, the first critically edited edition, and the first to present a biography of the poet. 

Volume four picks up where volume three left off, returning readers to the Kings of England. The fourth volume begins with King Henry VI. Part III, known for having one of the longest soliloquies and more battle scenes than any other Shakespeare play. Following King Henry VI. Part III is Richard III and King Henry VIII. The volume concludes with three of Shakespeare’s tragedies; Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus, and Titus Andronicus. A full-page engraving by the French Baroque artist and book illustrator François Boitard (1670-1715) and engraved by English engraver Elisha Kirkall (c.1682–1742) precedes each play. The Titus Andronicus engraving is particularly graphic, feeding the rumor that the play was Shakespeare’s attempt to emulate the violent and bloody plays of his contemporaries. 

In addition to Rowe’s editorial decisions to divide the plays into scenes and include notes on the entrances and exits of the players, he also normalised the spelling of names and included a dramatis personae preceding each play. The only chronicled critique of Rowe’s momentous editorial endeavor is his choice in basing his text on the corrupt Fourth Folio. 

View more volumes of The Works of Mr. William Shakespear; in Six Volumes here. 

View more Shakespeare Weekend posts. 

-Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

[roxannepolice]

Outside the boundaries of the universes lie the raw realities, the couldhave-beens, the might-bes, the neverweres, the wild ideas, all being created and uncreated chaotically like elements in fermenting supernovas.

Just occasionally where the walls of the worlds have worn a bit thin, they can leak in.

And reality leaks out.

Thank you, sir Terry, for once again providing me with an excellent opening quote for a Doctor Who rambling. That probably has nothing to do with the fact that both DW and Discworld fall into the Gulliverian satire poetic.

So yeah, about what's grown to be called a Truman show theory, and I cannot stop making it clear, me critically poking at it is not me hating it especially if Ruby's story ends up throwing shade providing metatextual insight on the mystery baby extravaganza of 2010s (am I the only one who thought that Splice looks like Rey?).

But the problem is, how far would the revelation go? Is it just the endgame for the season? Did it start when Fourteen invoked a superstition at the end of the universe, as the text implies? Or does it go further back, as the Newton and apple story is unreal, too (HOT TAKE: THEY'RE IN VOLTAIRE'S BRAIN. THE CRITICISM OF ORGANISED RELIGIOM CONFIRMS THAT). Or was it already there when Fourteen regenerated in new clothes (he does talk of "canon" in the Dalek Mini-sode)? All of this is just digging deeper into figuring out just how clever the Cave is. But let's dig even deeper, shall we?

Ok, maybe it's Flux. Flux definitely messed up a lot of things, such as replacing Russia with Sontarans. Except...

There's Robin Hood in season 8. And not just a guy called Robin Hood, it's the Robin Hood of legend. Twelve is explicitly confused by that.

In fact, fourth wall breaking was probably most recurrent in Twelve's run.

Though let us not forget Thirteen looking straight into the camera to explain humans must recycle or else we'll turn into props.

Hey, remember how in Let's kill Hitler Eleven is like "The British are coming" and Hitler reacts with fear? In 1936? When the alliance between Third Reich and UK looked like a very realistic prospect? When the Windsors were enthusiastic over what was going on in Germany? PROPAGANDA MUCH?

Bashing on the royals will definitely go down better than my next point on this anarcho-communist coffeeshop AU website, but if you guys think the Red Army's involvement in WWII was fresh faced boys so filled with faith in equality for all people that they came to fight its eternal enemy of fascism then no. Nonononononono. No. NO. Go read about Ribbentrop-Molotov pact NOW. Sincerely, a person living east of the Berlin wall.

Seventh era is also when we get a hint there's a Doctor Who show on BBC.

I'm not going to go through every single time DW has leaned into a made up version of events (wonder if the Doctor ever changed their mind about Mao Zedong, though), but you're getting the drift, but there is one last point to be made.

Nero didn't start the great fire of Rome. The eternal city was a densely packed stack of wood and would go up in flames quite often, though the one from 64 CE was a particularly nasty one and putting it out could have been coordinated better. Still, the idea Nero intentionally started it is 100% made up.

Why should this be important? Well, The Romans are from the 2nd season of Classic Who, from 1965. While we're at it, season 1 historicals are also based more on simplified ideas about Marco Polo, the reign of terror, or Aztec human sacrifices (Barbara Wright Victorious, my love) than true facts (probably because documentary about everyday life of the Aztecs would work better as a way to get children to sleep than to get them hooked on history), but that's more a matter of how than what. In case you want to somehow reconcile this via the Pantheon, then the Toymaker first appeared in season 3, and that after the Doctor visited the Trojan war and Vicki stayed there with Troilus as actually faithful Cressida.

So. The thing about Truman show revelation is. It's either groundbreaking on a last episode ever, goodbye yellow brick road, level, or not meaningful at all. I just can't see it work as a seasonal endgame, because if the episode from 2023 is in unreality, then so is the one from 1965. Just, where do you go from here? It's either waking up in the crude reality or. y'know. acknowledging the convention, which is what the Truman show theory kinda set out to negate in the first place.

Again, I genuinely want to discuss! I myself am never sure if hot take posts are open to discussion, which is why I made a separate post, so I want to make it clear, I want to have the holes in my own rambling explained!

[crystalromana]

Apocryphia Bipedium- Ian Potter

[FIXED THE WONKY MOBILE EDITING. >.< IT LOOKED FINE ON DESKTOP]

[I am obsessed with this short trip so I had to bring it to Tumblr. Yes I did just copy and paste this page by page out of the pdf and formatted it. I think about it all the time. Anyway.

Apocrypha Bipedium takes place in the gap between Time of the Daleks and Neverland. Enjoy]

A Suggestive Correlation of The Cressida Manuscripts with other Anomalous Texts of the Pre-Animarian Era as proposed for Collective Consideration by Historiographic Speculator Anctloddoton.

In my selection and placement of the following extracts from the literature of the extinct worlds, I have attempted to draw suggestive parallels between some of the Problem Texts of the humanoid cultures. Obviously, the records of those times are now so fragmentary that any conclusions we draw from the surviving evidence must remain speculative. We cannot know what evidence we are missing, thus the linking of events posited by the presentation of these documents must remain a tentative hypothesis at best.

HS A From The Primary Cressida Document – Suppressed Texts of the Vatican Library, A Mysteria Press Original, 2973 CE.

The past is another country, the Doctor used to say. By which I suppose he meant it’s a nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there, and you can have real problems with customs when you arrive.

I grew up in the future myself, which makes living in the past tricky at times. Liverpool was a great place to grow up if you were into the past though. It was full of it; the Campus Manor theme park, the castle, the Beatles Memorial Theatre, The Saint Francis of Fazakerley Museum, the Carl Jung Dream Tour, Post-Industrial Land and all those cathedrals, you were tripping over history everywhere. Mummy’s parents came from there too, so it was practically like we knew reallife olden days people.

It was much better than Liddell Towers where we lived in New London – most of the history near there seemed to be about some silly girl who’d let a professor of sums take photos of her and fell down a rabbit hole, or about those awful Daleks wiping out Southern England with mines and things. Much duller and hardly any variety in the rides at all.

Here in the actual olden days there’s not much past anywhere, just loads of future, and the rides are even less fun, all carts and donkeys and hardly any roads. We’re moving again, you see, dear diary. Even though the conquering Greeks don’t really seem to want to colonise any of Asia Minor themselves they don’t seem to want any Trojans settling back down anywhere round here either. They’ve occupied what’s left of the city, I suspect mainly so Menelaus can find all the expensive bits of Helen’s jewellery she seems to have mislaid, and seem keen we don’t hang about too nearby. Mymiddon Hoplites apologetically move us on now and again, clearly wondering when they can decently be allowed back home to start fighting amongst themselves again, and so we pack up and move. Some of their chaps are still feeling rather tetchy for no good reason apparently. Troilus says there’s a silly rumour going around that some terrible woman, probably a goddess, went around whipping up aggression amongst the Greeks a few years ago by magic, leaving marks on their necks that mean they can’t calm down!

It doesn’t make any sense to me. I think I might just be getting the cleaned up version of a soldier’s tale actually. I think that happens with me a lot. People treat me like a silly little girl sometimes, which isn’t really fair when I come from the future and know all sorts of things they don’t. I’m an adult now, even if not being born yet does make me about minus four thousand officially.

I don’t think Agamemnon’s Greeks really know what to do now to be honest, and after a decade’s anticipation I don’t think the trade routes or the princess they were sacking Troy to get are quite as good as they were hoping. I think they’re just hanging around stopping us settling down and looking for lost costume jewellery until they can think of something better to do. Some of the Ithacans are moaning it’ll be another decade before any of them get home at this rate. Bless them.

Running out of room, dear diary. Will write more when I have some new goats’ hides.

From Not Necessarily the Way I Do It! The True Confessions of a Ka Faraq Gatri not just written for the money when trapped on a primitive planet and needing cash to buy parts by ‘Snail’, Boxwood Books, 300 AGB.

Of course the hairy kangaroo had been at the mind rubbers and didn’t even realise the sword was there! How we laughed. Terrible namedropper, Zodin, but worth her weight in soufflé all the same

Naturally enough, mention of name-dropping reminds me of another anecdote, this one relating to dear old Bill Shakespeare, one of the finest writers and most atrocious spellers of any age. I’ve met him several times now and hope to again if I ever get off this pre-warp- engineering dustball. The last time was during that sticky business with poor Kitty Marlowe and those Psionovores from Neddy Kelley’s old scrying glass that I related in Chapter 9, but perhaps our most awkward misadventure together was the time I introduced him to some of his own characters, who included, as it happened, a dear, dear friend of mine.

From The Dairy of an Edwardian Adventuress by Charlotte Elspeth Bollard, Library of Kar-Charrat. The work, having suffered some worm damage in the Great 2107 AD Cock Up, is presented here in the Elgin decorruption.

Travelling with Wilf and the Doctor was a curious experienced already felt somewhat out of sorts with time, having discovered my very existence was making history split in two, but sharing a home with a boy from the 16th Century and a man who seemed to come from nowhere so much as his own imagination, merely heightened my feeling that I no longer belonged to any era.

We three fellow time travellers had so very little in common beyond having all read the plays the boy had not yet written that the small talk had been small indeed, and, after a few days of the Doctor failing to get Wilf home, the atmosphere had become a little tense.

Wilf, it further transpired, had difficulty reading anything written in more modern Anglish than his own, which meant there had been little of a literary nature to distract him during his sojourn with us once he had read and re-read the Doctor’s picture books about Frinchs, Sneetches, Ooblecks and Cats in Hams.

Thankfully, towards the end of Wilf’s stay with us the Doctor had discovered a futuristic version of Lido called Peter Pan Pop-O-Matic Frustration that we could enjoy playing together and those last long hibiscus-scented afternoons in his music room passed pleasantly enough, without young Wilf having to constantly relate the escapades of besocked foxes to us.

The Doctor always won our games, usually coming from behind implausibly late in the day, and nearly always using some devious subterfuge to gain victory. Indeed, it was observing the childlike joy on the Doctor’s face at his underhand triumphs on the Peter Pan Pop-O-Matic Frustration board that I first realised just how much of Peter there was in his nature. Naturally, we loved him enough to pretend not to notice his cheating (I sometimes think the whole universe did) and at times towards the end we three had so much fun that I almost forgot I was a paradox, unpicking creation like Penelope at her tapestry in the heroic age we had just left.

From The Pseudo-Shackspur – works attributed to William Shakespeare collated by Heinrich Von Berlitz and Leopold Kettlecamp, Ampersand and Ampersand, 85 AH.

This passage from The Noble Troyan Woman of Troy – fragmentary foul papers of a naive work once attributed to the very young Shackspur, is worth quoting in full.

Act 2, Scene 1. A room within the box. Enter Mistress Charley, Doctor Shallow and Young Will.

Doct. Here at last! Our journey finally through. In fifteen hundred and seventy two. Young Will, regard the ceiling viewing dome – Stratford on Avon, the Hathaway home.

Will. But sir, on those bare hills, no swarths do roll. And no houses nestle ’twixt those craggy knolls – The sun burns with a fierce un-English light And that beach there is not a Warwick sight! That’s not Stratford displayed above us

Char. – Lest the Avon’s turn’d to sea, ’Od love us!

Many scholars have disputed the authenticity of this piece of alleged Shackspurian juvenilia, pointing out, fairly, that it does appear to be the only one of his extant works that the Bard biroed in a twentieth-century school jotter otherwise festooned in swirly ink blots and doodled hexagons. However, if Shackspur did travel in Time, as several scholars suggest, this objection falls away. A more compelling argument for its inauthenticity is the verse style, experimenting uniquely within the Shackspurian canon with strict iambic pentameter composed entirely in rhyming couplets. Whilst dreadful, it is nothing like as appalling as that in Shackspur’s earliest known adult writing

***

From Tales from the Matrix – True Stories from TARDIS Logs Retold for Time Tots by Loom Auntie Flavia, Panopticon Press, 6833.8 Rassilon Era. Part of the Wigner Heisenberg Collection, The Mobile Library, Talking Books Section. Location currently uncertain.

The Doctor flicked the temporal stabiliser off and pulled down the transitional element control rod taking him out of the Vortex. Quite the wrong way to actualise and quadro-anchor even a Type 40 Time Capsule, isn’t it? Exiting the interstitial continuum at the perihelion of a temporal ellipse can cause serious buffering in your harmonic wave packet transference and sever your main fluid links, can’t it?

‘Here we are, Stratford on Avon, 1572!’ announced the Doctor proudly and wrongly. If he’d ever bothered to use his Absolute Tesseractulator to pinpoint his dimensional locations he wouldn’t have made these kind of mistakes, of course, but the Tesseractulator had never come out of its box, had it?

Charlotte Pollard, the Doctor’s friend, came over to him and flicked on the ceiling scanner.

A friend’s an Earth thing. It’s a bit like having a colleague or fellow student you co-operate with, but without any exams or project targets at the end to make the co-operation meaningful. There was a fashion for having them on Gallifrey at one time, ask some of your older cousins about it, they might remember.

Charlotte squinted at the view outside. It didn’t look like the Stratford she’d visited, with neither alien enslavers nor half timbered tea shops anywhere in sight. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

‘Positive. Ish,’ replied the Doctor. William Shaxsberd, a young man they’d promised to drop off in 1572, put down his coloured crayons and came to join them.

‘It does not look much as it once did, Doctor,’ said William, looking at the ceiling and cricking his neck.

The Doctor followed suit. The dustbowl outside was certainly not Warwickshire in any era he’d visited, ‘No. Indeed not,’ he admitted. ‘I think the rift in the Vortex is introducing a random element into my calculations.’

Do you remember the rift in the Vortex, from last time? That’s right, the Doctor made that too! It was due to the paradoxical interaction of two paravertical chronostreams further complicated by three retro- temporal augmented causal feedback loops, wasn’t it?

‘Another random element?’ asked Charlotte, ‘More random than the way you play “eeny meeny miney mo” with the buttons?’

‘Ha, Charley,’ said the Doctor. ‘Tres amusent.’

Charlotte turned to William to explain, ‘That’s French, Will, for “I’ve been banged to rights, Miss Pollard”,’ she said.

‘I somehow knew,’ William replied.

‘Really?’ asked Charlotte. ‘How?’

‘It’s a Time Lord gift, Charley,’ said the Doctor, ‘and yes it would be awfully de trop to ask how it works.’ Or at least that’s whatCharlotte thought he said. William heard something quite different of course.

Well, let’s get out there then,’ said the Doctor, opening the doorswithout taking any proper readings.

‘Er, why?’ asked Charlotte.

‘Because until we know how far out the rift has shunted us in spaceand time we won’t know how to get to Stratford, 15 diddlydiddly...’explained the Doctor, waving his hand vaguely as he searched hismemory for the end of the four digit number he’d lost interest in.

‘Seventy-two,’ prompted William.

‘The very same.’ The Doctor beamed, ruffling the young man’s hair in a way that, thanks to the TARDIS telepathic circuits alone, seemed endearing rather than insufferable and over familiar.

William and the Doctor headed for the doors. Charlotte was troubled though.

‘Won’t my temporal instability cause untold problems to wherever we are?’ she asked, quite sensibly, all things considered.

‘Oh, very probably, I expect,’ replied the Doctor airily, ‘but if you spent your whole life worrying about the consequences of your actions you’d never get anything done and the consequences of that would be unthinkable, wouldn’t they? Faint heart never bowled a maiden over,you know.’

Charlotte scowled. ‘Mind,’ added the Doctor as he stepped out of the control room, ‘neither did Katie “the Beast” Davies, if I remember my22nd-century Wisden correctly.’

That was an allusion to the Earth game Cricket, wasn’t it? It was the Earth’s planetary sport, despite the fact that humans were the worst players of it in the galaxy if you remember.‘

Doctor, I find your words confusing,’ said William as he followed him out.‘It’s a Time Lord gift, Will,’ Charlotte whispered. ’You’ll get used to it.’

* * *

From The Primary Cressida document

New hides! This keeping a journal business is awfully tricky when you’ve no paper around, but before mummy died, she did make me promise I’d write one when I eventually settled down. It’s a family tradition that’s been handed down for generations apparently, not that I ever saw mummy’s.

Anyhow, Troilus is still very eager to settle soon, but where? I’ve ruled out going east to the Holy Land because from what I remember from history and my travels we’ll get no peace there and the rest of the Med and Adriatic has already been bagsied. Troilus reckons Aeneas will have already have set up somewhere by now and we should have gone off on his boat when we had the chance. I just nod, and try to explain wave particle duality to the little ones.

I have a vague feeling I learned something about Aeneas from the UK-201’s didactomat box way back in the future. I think he ended up with Dido in Carthage for a bit, which confuses me because I thought Dido’s music was Late Classical, which must be after this period, surely. I’m sketchy on the details to be honest. I only remember it was Dido and not Sister Bliss because the planet we crashed into on the way to Astra was named after her.

Funny thinking about Dido, that was the place I’ve called home longest in recent years. I’ve been a nomad a while really – split between London and Liverpool as a girl, never knowing whether to talk posh and southern or not, emigrating to off-Earth with daddy, hopping about through Time with the Doctor, and now traipsing around Turkey with Troilus and his mates before its even called that or has any tourist facilities to speak of. I think I must have ‘space travel in my blood’ as one of those Baroque composers put it!

I’ve been wondering when I should discover electricity and plumbing a bit recently, these fleeces don’t clean themselves like proper clothes, so the sooner we can invent the twin tub the better. Are we before or after that Monk who invented things too early here, I wonder? I don’t want to mess things up like he did, but I’m shocking on dates. I just paid attention to the stories in the history books really, not the order they happened in. If I’d known the way round history went was going to be important I would have had the machine teach me it. Of course, as a child you never expect all that history around you is going to run away into the future like it has, do you? I’ve decided I’ll probably start with a steam engine and see if that messes up my memory of the future. The way I see it, it’ll be impossible for me to invent anything that’ll stop me being born so I can’t do too much harm.

I casually suggested making things out of iron the other day, which I know is a big step forward but everyone just laughed. Too brittle and hard to work compared to bronze or tin, they said. I suppose they’re right. You have to do something to it to make it strong, I remember that. I just don’t remember what that something is. For all I know my quad physics equations and could still compose a cogent analygraphfor the fall of the Mallatratt Protectorate, I’m a bit rusty on a few of the basics. Going to take us years to get garlic bread and sound radio at this rate.

Of course, I had a bit of training for life without the mod cons on Dido, so I can cope, but what makes things really fiddly at the moment is that my future’s past is catching up with my present, which is complicated enough to write down, let alone experience.

We’ve just bumped into the Doctor as a young man, and I’m sure it’s really bad form for me to let on I recognise him when as far as he’s concerned he’s not met me yet.

From Not Necessarily the Way I Do It!

My plan was pretty much the usual one, to go out and see if we could find out the year and our whereabouts in a way that wouldn’t arouse any suspicions, and then hang around until nightfall to get a better fix from the position of the stars. It may sound dull but I’ve found if I do that I usually find something or other to get embroiled in before sunset.

We stepped circumspectly out of the Ship and set off in search of the nearest habitation, ready as ever to improvise any number of cover stories to explain our presence and strange garb. As luck would have it we soon ran into one of the locals, and were able to subtly winkle out the info we needed on route to his encampment.

From The Dairy of an Edwardian Adventuress

People say you should never look back of course, advice we’ve been ignoring since Orpheus and EuroDisney, but I can’t help thinking that if the Doctor hadn’t landed us in the aftermath of the Trajan War a lot of that beastly business with the Time Lords might have been avoided later.

As usual the Doctor rejoiced in dropping straight into the middle of things without a moment’s forethought. Impossible, exasperating man,I tried to protest but somehow he just brushed my complaints away with a smiled shouldn’t have let him, but he did have such a lovely smile.

* * *

From The Pseudo-Shackspur

The Noble Troyan Woman of Troy

Act 3, Scene 2. Another part of the hillside. Enter Mistress Charley, Doctor Shallow and Young Will.

Doct. Yoohoo! Mister Goatboy, excuse me please, Could you tell me what time and place is this? Char. Discreet as ever.

Enter a Goatherd.

Doct. Yes, but awfully brave. Young man, there is information we crave. What land is this and what year are we in? We’ve lost track of both in our travelling.

Char. Oh I give up, you’re so inconsistent.

Doct. Just smile prettily, act like an assistant.

Char. But I never know what trick you’ll pull next!

Doct. Just grit your teeth, smile and stick out your chest; Magic’s best tricks work by misdirection.

Char. So I’m just here to stir his –

Will. Affection?

Doct. Quite so Will, a pretty face inspires trust. True, I’m afraid, if not awfully just. This chap will tell us the time and the place And Presto well head straight back into Space!

Goat. Eleven eight three BC is the year This is Hisarlik in Anatolia. I expect you’re traders from Phoenicia To be garbed and garbling here so queer. You’ve been ship wreck’d and concuss’d I’ll be bound. Which’ll be why you have no goods around. We must offer you shelter at the least Pop back home with me and well have a feast.

Char. How can he know he lives before Our Lord?

Doct. It’s just a translation device that’s flaw’d. It’s an awfully clever mechanism But it causes the odd anachronism. Kind goatherd, we would love to share a meal And watch the evening stars above us wheel. For by such means we will precisely know Our station now and where we next must go. Exeunt Omnes.

From Tales from the Matrix

‘Do we really need to do this?’ asked Charlotte as the band trudged wearily after the herdsman in their impractical shoes, ‘Surely the date and location he’s given you is enough?’

‘Perhaps,’ the Doctor replied, ‘but studying the stars will allow me to be more accurate. Besides, I’m famished. We haven’t eaten for minus three thousand years, bear in mind.’

So the Doctor and his companions blithely headed off into further temporal confusion, unaware that the goatherd had seen the TARDIS arrive and knew full well who the Doctor was already.

There’s a lesson there for anyone who thinks it’s clever to keep their TARDIS in one form, don’t you think? The Ionic Column factory preset might look nice, for example, but when using it means every Grun, Za and Caius in the Cosmos knows who you are immediately, it rather defeats the point of a chameleon circuit.

From The Primary Cressida document

One of our herdsmen saw the TARDIS arrive in the next valley this afternoon and instantly recognised it as the mobile temple that had prefigured the city’s fall, and the Doctor as a younger version of the old man from my tales.

He sent his mate back to tell us so we all had time to prepare ourselves and could all pretend we believed the Doctor’s implausible story about being a trader from Phoenicia when he turned up an hour or so later.

It’s definitely him, probably about 40 years before we met. He dresses similarly, his hair is curlier and darker and his face looks a bit different, but the years are never kind, are they? Amazingly, he’s almost as vague as a young man as he was when old, if not quite so ummy and erry. I’d always assumed that was because he was getting on a bit.

Thankfully, no one here’s too thrown by the idea of time travellers after me relating all my adventures to them, though one of the boys did ask me why the Doctor didn’t walk and talk backwards when his past was in the future. I was very clear why not when I started explaining it, but I must admit I got a bit confused as I went along. He hasn’t recognised me of course, dear diary, and we’ve invited him and his friends to have tea tonight.

From Not Necessarily the Way I Do It!

Well, imagine my embarrassment when we arrived at the fellow’s encampment and who was in charge but my old friend Vicki (now calling herself Cressida of course) and her new husband Troilus, who I’d never actually met, due to quite heavy escaping commitments around the time they got together.

I realised with a start that young Bill Shakespeare was due to write a play about this couple in a few years, and that unless I was careful thismeeting would almost certainly be what inspired it, thus complicating Bill’s already tortuous history further and bringing yet another new paradox to mine. I’d only let Vicki go away with Troilus at Troy’s fall because once I heard she was calling herself Cressida I’d assumed it was predestined (well, I was young, I believed in that kind of thing), I knew there was a play about the couple by Shakespeare and thought I was helping history take its course by hitching them up. Now, if I’d only done that because my future actions would one day bring that play about, I’d accidentally made a big chunk of my past dependent on my future, which, as you know, isn’t really the accepted way of going about things.

I reasoned it was vital for the tidiness of the time line that I kept Bill from learning the background of Troilus and Cressida in any detail, ideally forgetting as much of their present as he could too.

To complicate matters further, Vicki had actually seen Bill as an adult on my time telly, the Time Space Visualiser. She was never the most historically careful of girls, and I feared that if she found out who he was, she’d probably tell him all about his future at the court of Elizabeth and getting the commission to write The Merry Wives of Windsor and the inspiration for Hamlet on the same day and how he’d sprained his wrist in his rush to write both.

All it might take, I thought, would be one slip from any one of us, accidentally mentioning the words TARDIS or Zeus Plug over dessert, say, and causality would be tangled up like President Pandak’s kittens in twine, quicker than you could explain what you pop in a Ganymede socket.

Luckily, it seemed Vicki hadn’t spotted how anachronistic our garb was and hadn’t realised I was her old friend, seeming to completely swallow my inventive tales of sea faring, despite Charley’s rather fanciful insertions about hook-handed pirates.

I had, of course, underestimated her, as a quick and entirely accidental glance at her diary before dinner proved. Not knowing I could regenerate, she had taken me for my young self in my first form and thought she was protecting me from foreknowledge!

This, of course, suited my purpose. All I reckoned I had to do now to save Time from chewing itself to bits was keep Will busy and make sure Vicki didn’t relate her history to any of us over dinner.

Oh what tangled webs we weave, when tidy temporal strands we try to leave.

From The Dairy of an Edwardian Adventuress

Mr and Mrs Troilus seemed a sweet couple, he a lanky chap with a curly beard and a well-meaning expression and she a rather enthusiastic young thing with big eyes, yet the Doctor had become rather shifty from the moment we met them. I knew he was preoccupied by something, but I had, at that time, no idea what. After some fun, improvising tales of derring-do on the high seas to prove our credentials as traders, he took me to one side and explained that I had to get Wilf as squiffy as possible at the feast that night for reasons it was simpler at that moment not to explain. He said history depended on me getting the boy so drunk he could neither speak nor remember his behaviour the next morning. I’m normally quite good at that kind of thing, it was hardly my fault the Bawd was a functioning alcoholic at the age of eight.

From The Pseudo-Shackspur

The Noble Troyan Woman of Troy

Act 4, Scene 1. An encampment in the mountains. Enter Mistress Charley, Doctor Shallow, Young Will, a goatherd, Troilus, Cressida, divers villagers and guards severally.

Doct. Hello. (Aside) Her! ’Tis Vicki, I should have guess’d. I never with good geography was bless’d Hisarlik is the modern name for Troy. Quite a temporal tangle, boy oh boy! (To Cress.) Ha ha, my hearties! We here are sailors three. (Aside) I can but hope she does not see ‘tis me.

Cress. (Aside) Deceit upon deception! Can this be The Doctor who I first took it to be? Is this him when young as I assumed? Or must deeper deceit be presumed? I’ll play along until the truth I know. (To Doct.) Good mariners, welcome and hello.

Will. (To Char.) What’s this strange accented charade about?

Char. (To Will) Who knows, we’ll be, I bet, last to find out.

From Tales from the Matrix

Yes Time Tots, exactly! The first thing any of us would have done would have been to get out of there quickly before we compromised the causal nexus. Staying for tea and imbibing too much ethanol, which you’ll recall the Doctor had a particular weakness for on his mother’s side, doesn’t strike any of us as sensible!

From The Secondary Cressida document (a transcribed fragment allegedly found at a Church of Rome jumble sale) – Even More Suppressed Texts of the Vatican Library, A Hatper-Mysteria- Ellerycorp Press Original, 2977 CE

My ruse worked, the robot’s read my carefully exposed diary and thinks I suspect nothing! He’s so obviously not really the Doctor it’s not true, but he doesn’t know I know that yet, so we have the advantage. He’s definitely a Dalek robot double like that other one they sent after us.

They’ve probably made him the young Doctor this time to make it less obvious. He does look a bit like he could be him sometimes if you’re not paying attention, but if you look closely his face is all wrong and his voice goes a bit funny sometimes like that other robot’s did, almost doing my accent at times! I think he’s probably feeding on my jumbled memories or something.

We’ll overpower him and his companions at dinner tonight and destroy them, they won’t expect me to know how to deactivate them.

From Not Necessarily the Way I Do It!

I’ve always been keen on wine, particularly the heavier oaky reds, though I find there is a rather tiresome tendency for them to be drugged by villainous blackguards sometimes, rather impairing the subtleties of the flavour, but wine in the Homeric era was quite a different proposition. What can I tell you about it except that it tasted awful but did the job?

It wasn’t the heavily resinated stuff the Greeks later went in for, thankfully, nor indeed that watered-down muck the ancient Romans used to dish out at parties, but I think it’s telling that the most flattering thing Homer had to say about it in the whole of The Iliad was how like the sea it was in hue. When you bear in mind he was blind, you can tell he’d had to ask around a bit to find anyone with something positive to say about it.

The food wasn’t much better either. It can be terribly hard eating out when you travel like I do. These days at home, I generally try to eat only things that don’t have a central nervous system, or that I’ve knocked up in the food machine, but sometimes, when you’re a guest, qualms like that have to go out of the window, particularly on worlds ruled by intelligent plants, where you’re best advised not to ask for a celery stick and to just stick your toes in damp soil like everyone else at the table.

Even then I try to stick to my principles and not eat anything with a sense of self, parliamentary democracy or sultanas in it.

This dinner was a particularly awkward affair; Charley acting like a slightly sloshed pirate queen, Vicki acting like she didn’t know me, Bill acting up, singing lewd madrigals that officially weren’t due for invention yet in his rather reedy girlish voice, and all the while me worrying about causality falling apart around me rather too much to fully enjoy the dolmades.

Suddenly, half way through the proceedings, the impossible happened: it took a turn for the worse. Vicki shouted out ‘Now!’, and lunged at my chest and started tearing at my waistcoat.

From The Dairy of an Edwardian Adventuress

My recollections of the ensuing events are somewhat hazy; I had been struggling to match young Wilt measure for measure, you might say, when I saw the Doctor being attacked. I launched myself at his assailant and missed, I’m told, briefly losing my dignity and consciousness in the process.

A shocking melee ensued by all accounts, with Trajans tearing at our clothes with cutlery and all the usual business with tables being turned and the like breaking out; I’m only glad I can’t remember the full details, because what little I do makes me blush quite enough.

It’s quite possible I told someone I loved them, and was sick later too. I’ve never been brave enough to ask. The next thing I remember clearly was being in the main tent with the Doctor explaining a lot and me apologising a bit, just in case.

From The Pseudo-Shackspur

The Noble Troyan Woman of Troy

Act 5, Scene 2. At dinner beneath the stars.

Cress. Take that, false Doctor! But where are your wires? In sparks and puffs of smoke you should expire. Could it be that you are the Doctor true?

Char. Get your claws off him, he’s mine, you wild shrew!

Will. Oh, Pillicock sat on pillicock

Char. Will you stop that terrible singing, Will? The Doctor and I are under attack From this Troyan host, while you’re supping sack. Join in the scrap and cease your carousel Lewd songs, anyhow, douse all arousal.

Doct. Vicki, Will, Charley, all, put down those knives! You’re all making the mistakes of your lives.

Cress. Vicki, you say? You should not know that yet. If you’re the young Doctor, we’ve not yet met.

Doct. Vicki, the reason that I know your name Is that inwardly I am still the same Man who left you at Troy some years ago, I can change my looks, if you didn’t know. Char. Doctor, do you mean that you know this wench?

Doct. We travelled together many years hence. I think it’s time I explain’d the full truth Of why I’ve deceived you all, forsooth.

Will. If she’s an old friend then tell me why You did keep that fact from Charley and I?

Doct. This is an old friend, Will, but, what is worse, She features, in decasyllabic verse, In a drama that you shall one day pen That means I shall leave her with this Troyan, If you only write it because you’re here Chronological conundra appear. Effects and causes whirl and spin about, Go through the wringer and turn inside out. The egg that hatches out your chicken Does in that self same chicken thicken.

From Tales from the Matrix

Then in direct contravention of fifteen universal laws of Time and two local statutes, the Doctor sat down and explained everything that had happened, and, in explaining it, he brought all the things he was worried about happening that hadn’t into the open, didn’t he?

Of course, it turned out that some of the things he was worried about were of no concern at all, but as a result of relating them he brought worse problems about.

I expect most of you have read stories about the Doctor in other books, and I expect some of you think he’s quite clever, even though he breaks a lot of rules, don’t you? Well, you’re right! In a crisis, he’s just the kind of person you need around, he can come up with ideas almost no one else could. The only problem is, when you’re not having a crisis, he’s just the kind of person to cause one.

From The Primary Cressida document

How embarrassing. It turns out the Doctor was the Doctor after all, only older and with a new face for some strange reason. The girl who drinks too much is his latest companion and the little boy with the dirty songs and the voice like a girl is William Shakespeare! Nice enough lad, no wonder he ends up in the theatre with that voice though, perfect for all those drag roles they gave boys. We had a lovely chat about Dido and Aeneas and told each other about our scrapes with the Daleks, and I let slip the odd thing I knew about his future.

He’s told me we should go and settle in England. Apparently there’s an old book he’s read by a chap called Geoffrey that says relatives of Aeneas were the first Britons I think it’s a super idea, ’ I know Troilus will like it in England, and I think we’ve persuaded the Doctor too! Just think! could be one of my own ancestors passing on my secret diaries for years and years, a bit like mummy’s family did! How smashing would that be?

From Not Necessarily the Way I Do It!

Of course I decided in the end that honesty would be the best policy and that as long as everyone knew the full facts, and swore not to be influenced by them, we could probably darn the hole in causality in such a way that it wouldn’t show. I sat everyone down in the central tent and explained. Well, what a Charlie I looked!

*** From The Dairy of an Edwardian Adventuress

Ridiculously, the Doctor had been worried about Wilf getting inspiration for the play Troilus and Cressida from meeting the real Troilus and Cressida! I protested that Wilf had already read his own plays in the future anyhow, but the Doctor countered that they’d have been corrupted playing texts and in a court of law it would be hard to prove that was down to him, whereas if Will had got any of the plot or characterisation directly through his adventures with us that was a bit more serious.

That was when Will started laughing.

From The Pseudo-Shackspur

The Noble Troyan Woman of Tray Act 5, Scene 4. A tent in the camp.

Will. But Doctor, I did not invent the tale Of Troilus and Cressida’s love that fail’d. Why, Geoffrey Chaucer told it years ago! I cannot believe that you did not know. Have you read even half of what you claim Or do you just like dropping well-known names? Cressida’s tale is part of tradition Not the result of my precognition Of future perfect past present events, If you will forgive me my mangled tense, And my quondumque futures version Should have put you off this girl’s desertion.

Char. You should have read your Brodie’s Notes on Will. The phantom threat you feared from his quill Was nothing but an insubstantial shade, And there’s a real spectre here I’m afraid. I’m half a ghost of Christmas yet to come, Remember, I’ve made history come undone. You’ve got paradoxes enough to be Getting on with, as far as I can see, So why do you search for new ones instead That only exist inside of your head?

Doct. If I had known the work of me laddo Would I have found menace in my shadow? I here resolve to watch much less TV And be the reader I do claim to be. For half my erudite orations Come straight from books of quotations.

From Tales from the Matrix

‘What was Helen of Troy actually like then?’ asked William Shaxberd as he helped himself to more wine.

‘Is,’ corrected the Doctor, prissily.

‘She’s a good egg by all accounts,’ said Vicki, politely not mentioning the fact she thought her looks had gone, ‘and Menelaus was happy enough to have her back, even after all the bother, so she must be quite nice when you get to know her, I suppose.’

‘Well, she would have to be a good egg really,’ said William, ‘Her father was a swan supposedly.’ Like most young human men of his generation, he knew the salacious bits of Greek Mythology surprisingly well.

‘Half human on his mother’s side?’ smiled the Doctor, thinking himself clever. ‘Aren’t we all?’

‘No, just men,’ said Charlotte through a falafel.

‘She has two birthdays they say, one when the egg came out of her mother and another when it hatched,’ Troilus revealed, leaning forward over the table and whispering in that conspiratorial manner people sometimes do when divulging well known but dubious trivia.

‘It would have been an easy birth if she was born an egg,’ said Vicki ruefully, one hand on her stomach.

‘An easy lay, you mean,’ William corrected.

‘So Paris said –’Troilus began, his eyes a twinkle.

He was shouted down by his wife seconds later, barrack room tale untold, and one of those awkward silences ensued that dinner party guests in all cultures and times know only too well.

‘Have you actually read Troilus and Cressida, Doctor?’ asked Charlotte a little later.

‘You ask me, who had a hand in some of Shakespeare’s finest work – who put the mixed metaphor in the “To be or not to be” soliloquy, who hired the bear for The Winter’s Tale, and who really shouldn’t have passed on the story of A Midsummer’s Night Dream, if I’ve read Troilus and Cressida?’ replied the Doctor, rather over-egging it in that way he usually did when he was on the defensive.

‘Yes!’ they cried as one.

‘Well, no,’ admitted the Doctor. ‘It’s supposed to be one of the better ones, and well, you know, I’ve been busy. I’ve still not managed to tune the Time Space Visualiser in to catch all of The Golden Girls and I’ve been trying for decades.’

‘She doesn’t end up with Troilus in it, she ends up with Diomede, andit’s set during the war not after it!’ said Charlotte patiently.

‘Diomede! That was Steven!’ Vicki laughed.The Doctor looked confused. ‘Vicki and Steven were just friends,weren’t you? Just the odd haircut and getting locked up together, Ithought.’

‘Yes, that’s right, how many times do we have to go through that?’Vicki explained, giving a petulant Troilus a peck on the cheek.

‘Well the legend must have got a bit confused by the time it gotwritten down I think Chaucer got it from a foreign book,’ said William,draining his goblet.

The Doctor beamed, thinking he’d got away with his tinkering again.‘So Troilus and Cressida weren’t predestined after all!’ he said

‘Well, only because of your lack of reading,’ snorted Charlotte.

‘Oh that is a relief,’ said the Doctor taking the wine jug from William and helping himself without asking.

‘Now what about this business of giving us charts to help us reach this Britain young Will spoke of?’ asked Troilus, passing the Doctor a goat’s cheese nibble.

‘I really shouldn’t,’ explained the Doctor. ‘If you go there, on the basis of the frankly dubious history of Geoffrey of Monmouth then Vicki is in danger of becoming one of her own descendants, which is at least as badas the things I’ve been trying to prevent all day.’

‘Oh go on Doctor, please!’ begged Vicki. ‘We could mine tin in Cornwall and I’d promise not to invent anything I shouldn’t as long as I lived, not even roller skates!’

‘I don’t think I should. I’ve made enough of a mess looking after young Charley here, the repercussions of me sending you to Britain because the unborn Shakespeare suggested it could be horrendous,’ said the Doctor, finally being responsible for once in his lives.

‘Oh go on Doctor, I’m unborn too, remember, so that shouldn’t matte rmuch,’ said Vicki.

‘And I’m only half here,’ said Charlotte grimly ‘Why stop messing about now? You should have stayed at home watching these Golden Girls of yours if you weren’t prepared to get involved in real people’s lives. They’re messy and not always in the order you’d like and sometimes too short, and they’re not always better for having you in them, but you either face that or hide away somewhere, don’t you?

’The Doctor kissed her.

‘What was that for?’ asked Charlotte.

‘To shut you up,’ he said. He tapped Vicki on the nose and smiled,’Come on, let’s carry on the party, and in the morning, when rosy-fingered Dawn has done her bit, we’ll sort out a good map of Europe for the Trojans and get them started on their boats. Any consequences which haven’t happened yet we can worry about later!’

Some of you will be shocked at just how naughty the Doctor was in this story: jeopardising the stability of all those will-have-might-have-been futures out there depending on him by interweaving all those strands of destiny connected to the Dalek race and all on the basis of a whim.

The Doctor already knew Dalek causality was partially snagged in a loop in Time and his friend was the focus of a temporal anomaly, but of course he had spent a jolly long time in the Vortex, hadn’t he? That meant his causal connections to events future, past and maybe- somehow were a great deal more jumbled up than most people’s and he was quite good at judging just how likely to snaggle the Web of Time his whims might be.

Or so he thought.

The Doctor believed in two very wrong things you see; firstly, in something he called personal morality that he thought was more important than doing the things simply everyone knows are right, and secondly, that he was cleverer than everyone else and could always sort things out.

He deserved what happened to him next, didn’t he?

Document from the Braxiatel Collection Shakespearean Ephemera wing, a note found in the effects of William Shakespeare by literary assessor Porlock. It is not believed to be in Shakespeare’s hand though it bears some graphological similarities to the disputed Scarlioni Hamlet manuscript.

List of things not to mention

The Daleks,

That you’ve met me before when we meet next (because you didn’t mention it last time, you know),

That you’ve read half your plays already

That I wrote all the good bits in Hamlet, [‘good bits’ later amended to ‘rubbish bits’ in a different hand]

The idea of cigars (until Raleigh gets back from abroad),

That cigars will end up named after some of your characters,

That someone called Raleigh will go abroad,

That Troilus and Cressida had a lovely marriage and lived happily ever after in Mousehole, no matter how the story goes in Chaucer,

Oh, the places you’ve gone and the things that you’ve seen

[fallenangelblade]

the most interesting topic you’ve researched for a fic?

without question, sarah winchester and her stained glass windows (research for my mystery house WIP).

there is, of course, the iconic spiderweb window she designed, but i'm most fond of her twin shakespeare panels. i spent a huge amount of time reading and analyzing the text from both plays (one from Troilus and Cressida and the other from Richard II) and wondering what those particular lines meant to her.

there's also this recent story about how an envelope found hidden in one of the walls of the house helped identify the artisan who crafted the windows for sarah, which until 2019 had been a mystery.

it breaks my heart the way sarah winchester's legacy has been sensationalized for profit. her life and her work were incredible and instead of being recognized as an artist and a philanthropist, she's remembered as a hysterical, paranoid recluse with a guilty conscience and a house full of ghosts.

[mntds]

I love that the Achilles/Polyxena romance in Troilus and Cressida somehow manages to be like. The exact opposite of subtext. It’s explicitly stated in the text and also a very important part of the plot but also it’s mentioned so rarely that the average reader might not even pick it up on their first go through

[britneyshakespeare]

i still don't like troilus and cressida

[autistic-ophelia]

hiii sorry if this is a super weird question but I'm only just getting into the Shakespeare fandom and I was wondering if there were any textually gay people in Shakespeare? I've only read a couple of plays (my favorite is Hamlet) and obviously there's the subtext stuff but are there any that are 100% in the text?

Hi!

First, this is not a weird question at all! Hope that you're ready for Shakespeare to consume your entire brain like it did for me lmao

Second, you might be surprised to know that there are multiple undeniably queer characters in the canon (though be aware, I haven’t read the full canon so I may miss some things that other people will add). Antonio from twelfth night, Richard and his favourites from Richard ii, and Achilles and Patroclus from Troilus and Cressida all textually experience same gender attraction!

I know you specified textual but I feel like it's important to mention some of the more heavily coded characters as well. Honourable mentions go out to: Coriolanus and Aufidius (Coriolanus) , Brutus and Cassius (Julius Caesar), and (to an extent) Orsino (twelfth night). Plus some characters that have Big Gender like Viola/caesario (twelfth night) and Rosalind/Ganymede (as you like it). Very special thanks to my wonderful irl friend who helped me make a list. If you’re after some gay adaptations, said friend recommends the David Tennant Richard ii and the national theatre twelfth night (which is my favourite version of tn) (extra note from friend: be aware of the fact that there is some added incest in the Tennant production). I’d also like to add the national theatre Midsummer. Other people are encouraged to add recs!

Also, while not a play, I’d be remiss to not mention the sonnets. The first 126 (!) of Shakespeare’s sonnets are addressed to the “fair youth”, a young man that Shakespeare was in love with. You may already know this, but the super famous sonnet that starts “shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” was written for the fair youth!

[butchhamlet]

yeah you interpreted my ask correctly, that's what i meant! i definitely agree that there's a middle ground. on one hand, anything shakespeare 100% intended would've been clearly laid out in the text. it's hard to argue that he intentionally wrote something off in subtext when he pretty much spells every plot point or characterization out. it's also anachronistic to the conventions of his time, i think.

on the other hand, i've seen a bunch of people say it's impossible to present alternative character/plot interpretations in various productions because it isn't what shakespeare intended. and like i agree that on a textual level, you can't really argue that one theory is the only correct interpretation, but isn't the whole point of putting on different productions to present these same characters and stories through different angles? a theory doesn't have to be textually supported for a production to incorporate it. "shakespeare didn't use subtext" applies when studying the text academically, but different stagings naturally come with different interpretations. isn't that literally the point of having so many productions and interpretations of 1 play

this is mainly a discussion i've seen in the r/shakespeare subreddit tbh. specifically it crops up a lot when people ask "are [x] character(s) gay" and a very common response is "if shakespeare intended them to be gay, he would've explicitly spelled it out" (sometimes using achilles & patroclus from troilus and cressida as an example). it's not the majority but i've also seen a few people say some characters shouldn't be made gay since that isn't what shakespeare intended, and looking for subtext in lines is misguided. which is like. ?????? i know the people on r/shakespeare and also subreddits in general tend to be a very very different group but ?????????? i genuinely don't understand where they're coming from lmao. anyway i haven't seen anyone on tumblr talk about this and was really curious about your thoughts

"shakespeare didn't use subtext" applies when studying the text academically, but different stagings naturally come with different interpretations. isn't that literally the point of having so many productions and interpretations of 1 play

EXACTLY EXACTLY EXACTLY!!! PRECISELY! i dunno maybe in modern theater, especially indie theater, there's not much of a gap between text and production, but we are talking about SHAKESPEARE here. every one of his plays has been done 500 bajillion times. the text as its own contained thing is NOT the same as any of the productions and the idea that you can't do anything not 100% supported by the text is ridiculous. i can see how it might be a little rude/gauche to go in a completely wild direction if you're putting on a small play by a playwright who is still alive, but shakespeare is the most famous playwright to ever live probably and also he is SOOOOOOO DEAD. he's not gonna care if you do hamlet but ophelia is pregnant! he's not gonna care if you do hamlet but hamlet isn't there so there are just giant blocks of silence for every soliloquy! and isn't it beautiful how the craziest productions are basically collaging with his text, cutting it apart and piecing it back together? i can understand not personally enjoying out-there productions, but conceptually the stuff people do with shakespeare is dope as hell

"if shakespeare intended them to be gay, he would've explicitly spelled it out" (sometimes using achilles & patroclus from troilus and cressida as an example). it's not the majority but i've also seen a few people say some characters shouldn't be made gay since that isn't what shakespeare intended, and looking for subtext in lines is misguided.

i don't know why i'm surprised that this debate is perhaps a smokescreen for "stop putting gay people in everything ugh don't ruin the sanctity of the text" and yet i'm still taken aback by just. the silliness of this argument. and these are the same people talking about anachronism???? like. sorry is this better?

[image description: the following edited lines from hamlet:

HAMLET I am glad to see you well: Horatio,--or I do forget myself.

HORATIO The same, my lord, and according to a 21st-century model of sexuality as fixed and partitioned into disparate categories based on identity more than on action, I'm a gay man btw.

/end description]

[lavenite]

ok back to reading t+c again. only like 50 pages to go for chaucers poem and ill be honest. still nothing troilus has done has made me support him. hes a compelling character and if he wasnt so justified by the text i probably would have liked him earlier. cressida 'betraying' him is completely bc of his own actions like. hes a passive force to the detriment of himself. when shes going to be sent off to the greeks (for no explaination. they dont Know whats going to happen to her. only at that point shes no better than dead.) he goes to his room and cries. and when panderus comes to tell him to act he says he cant, loves her but wont do anything about it.

and what can cressida do? the main reason she refused to get with him was because of the idea that troilus is not actually loyal and once he has her hes going to throw her away. on top of that is the constant undermining of her character and Accusing her of cheating when she didnt which really upset her! because she cant understand why he wouldnt trust her like this. so its understandable that once she gets sent out - what can she do. her sweetheart has abandoned her for good

[zurdurer]

Mechs drawing ideas:

Johnny as Cerberus in UDAD

The caterpillar from Alice

You know the “Jon archivist played Johnny d’Ville in Uni” head cannon? That.

And that’s all I got.

Right okay,, this took so so so long because I had to properly think about these. But they were really fun prompts so thank you anon!!!

1. Jonny as Cerberus in UDAD

I could not get him to look right but I thought I'd make it kinda silly cus can you imagine Jonny being forced to wear a suit as Hades' guard dog??

2. The caterpillar from Alice

This was plain fun. I also really like the sketch so hey it may pop up again coloured and or rendered who knows (I totally didn't base their design off of RSC's Ulysses from Troilus and Cressida)

3. The "Jon archivist played Jonny D'Ville in uni" head cannon

These were fun + fast to draw so you can have a few of these :]

Thank you for the requests and if anyone has any others for anything else feel free to send them my way ^^

Edit: I've added descriptions in the alt text for each image