The Significance of "Tickle" in Troilus and Cressida

William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida is a play filled with marked variations of tone. The language ranges across the gamut from satirical to anticlimactic to dignified to tragic. This explains, to some extent, the level of difficulty that commentators have had in classifying the work. A close reading of the word choice and sense of tone in the play contributes a great deal to a better understanding of its meaning. Analysis of particular word choice should be, in fact, a very important consideration when attempting to understand Shakespeare's works. He is known to often make use of neologisms and his style thus reveals a familiarity with the intricate emotional weight that diction brings to literature.

Whenever relatively obscure words appear in a work with any frequency a careful reader must ask what significance they have been given in the context in which they are used. This is the case with the verb "tickle," which makes a number of high profile appearances in Troilus and Cressida. In fact, of the twenty-one instances that Shakespeare uses a form of the word "tickle" in his entire canon, six appear in this single play. It is a word that fits the character of the play well.

The play begins with a prologue composed in a prosodically and semantically harsh style describing the war-torn scene at Troy. "Orgulous" princes have their "high blood chafed," longing to "ransack" the city; the gates of Troy are "massy," the walls "strong" within which lies the "ravished" Helen; the Greek ships "disgorge" fresh young men who pitch their "brave pavilions" on the Dardan plains (Pro. 2–15). The strikingly extravagant register of this description ("orgulous" is an obscure word even in 1600) is interrupted by a more pleasing, colloquia...

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...ings. It could be a use of the term "tickle" in the sense of chastise, that is Troilus will chastise Diomedes for his concubine, Cressida. Or, and more likely, it could refer to Troilus attempting to resolve the situation because of his love (which Thersites and the audience see as lust). The use of "tickle" provides an extra layer of farcical humor to the scenario.

In summary, the use of "tickle" in Troilus and Cressida is a product of the diversity of messages the play seeks to instill. Just as tickling is a complicated action from which is derived pleasure and pain, irritation and amusement and the intentions of which are never very clear, so the word provides layers of meaning to the action in the play. In each usage, it helps to instill a sense of mocking to the tone of the speaker and underscores the complex nature of love, as the play does in its entirety.