Cressida
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Cressida is a character who appears in many Medieval and Renaissance retellings of the story of the Trojan War. She is a Greek woman, captured and enslaved by the Trojans, who falls in love with a Trojan prince, Troilus. She pledges everlasting love, but when she is sent back to the Greeks as part of a hostage exchange, she goes to live in the Greek warrior Diomedes' tent. She was usually depicted by writers as a paragon of female inconstancy.
The story of Troilus and Cressida is a medieval invention and does not appear in any Greek legends. The best known versions are Geoffrey Chaucer's poem Troilus and Criseyde, and William Shakespeare's play Troilus and Cressida (c.1603).
Various things have been named after Cressida:
- Cressida is a moon of Uranus.
- 548 Kressida is an asteroid.
- Cressida is a genus of swallowtail butterfly
- The Toyota Motor Corporation sold a line of cars in the United States named Cressida from the 1970's through 1992, after which it was replaced by the Lexus brand of cars. The Cressida was, at the time, Toyota's flagship luxury model in the US.