Cressida

Common card · No. 343530

Cressida (), also rendered Criseida, Cresseid or Criseyde, is a character who appears in many medieval and Renaissance-era retellings of the Trojan War, most notably Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and William Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. While her character in the later western tradition was developed from Chryseis, a minor figure in Homer's Iliad, they share few similarities. Cressida is a Trojan and the daughter of Calchas, a seer who defects and allies herself with the Greeks. During the Trojan War, she falls in love with Prince Troilus, the youngest son of Priam, king of Troy. The pair pledge everlasting love, but when Cressida is sent to the Greeks as part of a hostage exchange, she begins an affair with the Greek warrior Diomedes. Cressida has often been portrayed and interpreted as a femme fatale who leads Troilus to ruin.

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