Troilus is wrong in the method of his argument: he has shifted his ground without admitting it or perhaps without noticing it. Hector is right in insisting on the primacy of intrinsic value but he has no time to develop his argument , for Cassandra who deals in fundamentals, interrupts him..

Cassandra is also right, but Troilus mocks her ‘brain-sick raptures’ and rejects Hector’s notion that justice depends on the effects of like: justice, he says, is absolute and not subject to circumstances. His assertion and that of Paris who supports him are rebutted by Hector on the ground that passionate involvement has no place there. Hector argues that Paris and Troilus are too young and impetuous to judge rightly and that justice requires the return of Helen.

Hector argues that a passionate nature is incompatible with justice or prudence since it seeks some form of self gratification and hence further passion. Justice he says is natural and the most natural form of justice (that is, of due debt properly paid) is of a wife to her husband; and each civilized country has laws to control those passionate men who resist such justice. The application is made clear: a universal law condemns the policy of Paris; for Helen is indeed wife to SpartaÂ’s king and both natural law and the laws made by man require that she be returned.

Like the Greek debate scene, the Trojan debate is a serious discussion of fundamental issues, political and philosophical. Here the theme is extended to the even more general question of whether the whole War is worth the sacrifices involved. Nowhere in the canon is there such an insistent examination of traditional values with a concern for the implications and consequences. The play seems to ask whether the price justifies the enormous effort, whether honor and reputation are worth bleeding for, and whether abstract moral and political ideals have any real meaning.

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