Troilus and Cressida

Time is an important motif in Troilus and Cressida, representing stasis, death, and unforgiving fate. The very fact that the Prologue announces that the play begins in media res, or in the middle of the action, shows that the Trojan War has been going on for years already, wasting soldiers’ lives with no end in sight. 

Time is always at the back of the minds of characters like Ulysses and Agamemnon, who understand its cruelty: Time waits for no one and claims even the greatest of generals. When Ulysses is trying to rouse Achilles to go into battle, he reminds Achilles that no one can rest on past glories. In a famous metaphor, Ulysses declares: “Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back / wherein he puts alms for oblivion / a great-sized monster of ingratitudes” (3.3.156-158). Time is personified as a debt collector, who collects good deeds in his bag. In other words, as time passes, people’s good deeds are forgotten. Shakespeare plays on an old adage to deliver his message. The conflation of time with a “great-sized monster” shows how insignificant humans and their good deeds are in comparison to gigantic, greedy time.