TROILUS and CRESSIDA
By William Shakespeare
Dramatis Personae.
Speaker of the PROLOGUE.
Trojans: PRIAM, King of Troy.
CASSANDRA, Daughter to Priam, a prophetess.
HECTOR, }
TROILUS, }
PARIS, } Sons to Priam
DEIPHOBUS, }
HELENUS, }
MARGARELON, a bastard son to Priam.
AENEAS, }
ANTENOR, } Trojan Commanders.
CRESSIDA, Daughter to Calchas.
CALCHAS, Father to Cressida, taking part with the Greeks.
PANDARUS, Uncle to Cressida.
ALEXANDER, Servant to Cressida.
ANDROMACHE, Wife to Hector.
BOY SERVANT to Troilus.
MAN SERVANT to Troilus.
SERVANT to Paris.
Trojan Soldiers and Trojan Attendants.
Greeks: AGAMEMNON, the Grecian General.
MENELAUS, King of Sparta, brother to Agamemnon.
HELEN, Wife to Menelaus, living with Paris.
ACHILLES, }
AJAX, }
ULYSSES, } Grecian Commanders.
NESTOR, }
DIOMEDES, }
PATROCLUS, Companion to Achilles.
THERSITES, a deformed and scurrilous Greek.
SERVANT to Diomedes.
Myrmidons, warriors accompanying Achilles.
Greek Soldiers and Greek Attendants.
Scene: Troy, and the Greek Camp before it.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
PROLOGUE.
Enter PROLOGUE in armour.
Prologue In Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chafed,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war. Sixty and nine that wore
Their crownets regal from th' Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia. and their vow is made
To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
The ravished Helen, Menelaus' queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps -and that's the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come,
And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their warlike freightage. Now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions. Priam's six-gated city,
Dardan and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,
And Antenorides, with massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Stir up the sons of Troy.
Now expectation tickling skittish spirits
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come,
A Prologue armed, but not in confidence
Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited
In like conditions as our argument,
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.
Like, or find fault -do as your pleasures are;
Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.
ACT 1.
Scene 1. Troy. Before Priam's Palace.
Enter TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS.
Troilus Call here my varlet, I'll unarm again.
Why should I war without the gates of Troy
That find such cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan that is master of his heart,
Let him to field; Troilus, alas, hath none.
Pandarus Will this gear ne'er be mended?
Troilus The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength,
Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;
But I am weaker than a woman's tear,
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skilless as unpractised infancy.
Pandarus Well, I have told you enough of this; for my part, I'll not meddle
nor make no farther. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs
tarry the grinding.
Troilus Have I not tarried?
Pandarus Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.
Troilus Have I not tarried?
Pandarus Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.
Troilus Still have I tarried.
Pandarus Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word `hereafter' the
kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking;
nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.
Troilus Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,
Doth lesser blench at suff'rance than I do.
At Priam's royal table do I sit;
And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts -
So, traitor, then she comes when is she thence?
Pandarus Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or
any woman else.
Troilus I was about to tell thee: when my heart,
As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain
Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile;
But sorrow that is couched in seeming gladness
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.
Pandarus And her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's -well, go to,
there were no more comparison between the women. But for my part she is my
kinswoman I would not, as they term it, `praise' her; but I would somebody had
heard her talk yesterday as I did. I will not dispraise your sister
Cassandra's wit, but -
Troilus O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus -
When I do tell thee there my hopes lie drowned,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrenched -I tell thee I am mad
In Cressid's love; thou answer'st "She is fair";
Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart
Her eyes, her hair, her cheeks her gait, her voice;
Handlest in thy discourse -O, that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink
Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman. This thou tell'st me,
As `true' thou tell'st me, when I say I love her.
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm
Thou layst in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.
Pandarus I speak no more than truth.
Troilus Thou dost not speak so much.
Pandarus Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is: if she be fair,
'tis the better for her; and she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.
Troilus Good Pandarus -how now, Pandarus?
Pandarus I have had my labour for my travail: ill-thought on of her, and
ill-thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour.
Troilus What, art thou angry, Pandarus? What, with me?
Pandarus Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen. And
she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday.
But what care I? I care not and she were a blackamoor; 'tis all one to me.
Troilus Say I she is not fair?
Pandarus I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind
her father: let her to the Greeks -and so I'll tell her the next time I see
her. For my part, I'll meddle nor make no more i'th' matter.
Troilus Pandarus?
Pandarus Not I.
Troilus Sweet Pandarus.
Pandarus Pray you speak no more to me. I will leave all as I found it, and
there an end.
[Exit PANDARUS.
[Sound alarum.
Troilus Peace, you ungracious clamours! Peace, rude sounds!
Fools on both sides! -Helen must needs be fair
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument:
It is too starved a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus -O gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he's as tetchy to be wooed to woo
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl.
Between our Ilium and where she resides
Let it be called the wild and wand'ring flood,
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.
[Alarum.
Enter AENEAS.
Aeneas How now, Prince Troilus, wherefore not afield?
Troilus Because not there. This woman's answer sorts,
For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, Aeneas, from the field today?
Aeneas That Paris is returned home, and hurt.
Troilus By whom, Aeneas?
Aeneas Troilus, by Menelaus.
Troilus Let Paris bleed, 'tis but a scar to scorn;
Paris is gored with Menelaus' horn.
[Alarum.
Aeneas Hark what good sport is out of town today.
Troilus Better at home, if "would I might" were "may".
But to the sport abroad -are you bound thither?
Aeneas In all swift haste.
Troilus Come, go we then together.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 2. Troy. A Street.
Enter CRESSIDA and her man ALEXANDER.
Cressida Who were those went by?
Alexander Queen Hecuba and Helen.
Cressida And whither go they?
Alexander Up to the eastern tower,
Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is as a virtue fixed, today was moved:
He chid Andromache and struck his armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harnessed light,
And to the field goes he, where every flower
Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.
Cressida What was his cause of anger?
Alexander The noise goes this: there is among the Greeks
A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him Ajax.
Cressida Good; and what of him?
Alexander They say he is a very man per se,
And stands alone.
Cressida So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.
Alexander This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular
additions: he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the
elephant; a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is
crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion. There is no man hath a
virtue that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries
some stain of it. He is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair;
he hath the joints of every thing, but everything so out of joint that he is a
gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.
Cressida But how should this man that makes me smile make Hector angry?
Alexander They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle and struck him
down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and
waking.
Enter PANDARUS.
Cressida Who comes here?
Alexander Madam, your uncle Pandarus.
Cressida Hector's a gallant man.
Alexander As may be in the world, lady.
Pandarus What's that? What's that?
Cressida Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.
Pandarus Good morrow, cousin Cressid. What do you talk of? Good morrow,
Alexander. How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?
Cressida This morning, uncle.
Pandarus What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector armed and gone
ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?
Cressida Hector was gone but Helen was not up?
Pandarus E'en so. Hector was stirring early.
Cressida That were we talking of, and of his anger.
Pandarus Was he angry?
Cressida So he says here.
Pandarus True, he was so; I know the cause too. He'll lay about him today,
I can tell them that; and there's Troilus will not come far behind him. Let
them take heed of Troilus, I can tell them that too.
Cressida What, is he angry too?
Pandarus Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.
Cressida O Jupiter! -there's no comparison.
Pandarus What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man if you see
him?
Cressida Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him.
Pandarus Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.
Cressida Then you say as I say; for I am sure he is not Hector.
Pandarus No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees.
Cressida 'Tis just to each of them -he is himself.
Pandarus Himself? Alas poor Troilus, I would he were.
Cressida So he is.
Pandarus Condition I had gone barefoot to India.
Cressida He is not Hector.
Pandarus Himself? No, he's not himself. Would a' were himself! Well, the
gods are above; time must friend or end. Well, Troilus, well, I would my heart
were in her body. No, Hector is not a better man than Troilus.
Cressida Excuse me.
Pandarus He is elder.
Cressida Pardon me, pardon me.
Pandarus Th'other's not come to't; you shall tell me another tale when
th'other's come to't. Hector shall not have his will this year.
Cressida He shall not need it if he have his own.
Pandarus Nor his qualities.
Cressida No matter.
Pandarus Nor his beauty.
Cressida 'Twould not become him; his own's better.
Pandarus You have no judgement, niece. Helen herself swore th'other day
that Troilus for a brown favour -for so 'tis, I must confess -not brown
neither -
Cressida No, but brown.
Pandarus Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.
Cressida To say the truth, true and not true.
Pandarus She praised his complexion above Paris'.
Cressida Why, Paris hath colour enough.
Pandarus So he has.
Cressida Then Troilus should have too much. If she praised him above, his
complexion is higher than his -he having colour enough, and the other higher,
is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief Helen's golden
tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose.
Pandarus I swear to you, I think Helen loves him better than Paris.
Cressida Then she's a merry Greek indeed.
Pandarus Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th'other day into the
compassed window, and you know he has not past three or four hairs on his chin
-
Cressida Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars
therein to a total.
Pandarus Why, he is very young; and yet will he within three pound lift as
much as his brother Hector.
Cressida Is he so young a man, and so old a lifter?
Pandarus But to prove to you that Helen loves him, she came and puts me her
white hand to his cloven chin.
Cressida Juno have mercy, how came it cloven?
Pandarus Why, you know 'tis dimpled -I think his smiling becomes him better
than any man in all Phrygia.
Cressida O he smiles valiantly.
Pandarus Does he not?
Cressida O yes, and 'twere a cloud in autumn.
Pandarus Why, go to then. But to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus -
Cressida Troilus will stand to the proof if you'll prove it so.
Pandarus Troilus? -why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg.
Cressida If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you
would eat chickens i'th' shell.
Pandarus I cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his chin.
Indeed, she has a marvellous white hand, I must needs confess -
Cressida Without the rack.
Pandarus And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.
Cressida Alas, poor chin! Many a wart is richer.
Pandarus But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laughed that her eyes
ran o'er -
Cressida With millstones.
Pandarus And Cassandra laughed -
Cressida But there was a more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes. Did
her eyes run o'er too?
Pandarus And Hector laughed.
Cressida At what was all this laughing?
Pandarus Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus' chin.
Cressida And't had been a green hair, I should have laughed too.
Pandarus They laughed not so much at the hair as at his pretty answer.
Cressida What was his answer?
Pandarus Quoth she: "Here's but two-and-fifty hairs on your chin, and one
of them is white".
Cressida This is her question?
Pandarus That's true, make no question of that. "Two-and-fifty hairs" quoth
he "and one white: -that white hair is my father, and all the rest are his
sons." -"Jupiter," quoth she "which of these hairs is Paris my husband?" "The
forked one;" quoth he "pluck't out and give it him." But there was such
laughing, and Helen so blushed, and Paris so chafed, and all the rest so
laughed, that it passed.
Cressida So let it now, for it has been a great while going by.
Pandarus Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday. Think on't.
Cressida So I do.
Pandarus I'll be sworn 'tis true: he will weep you an 'twere a man born in
April.
Cressida And I'll spring up in his tears an 'twere a nettle against May.
[Sound a retreat.
Pandarus Hark, they are coming from the field. Shall we stand up here and
see them as they pass toward Ilium? Good niece, do, sweet niece Cressida.
Cressida At your pleasure.
Pandarus Here, here, here's an excellent place; here we may see most
bravely. I'll tell you them all by their names as they pass by; but mark
Troilus above the rest.
Enter AENEAS, and passes over the stage.
Cressida Speak not so loud.
Pandarus That's Aeneas. Is not that a brave man? He's one of the flowers of
Troy, I can tell you; but mark Troilus, you shall see anon.
Enter ANTENOR, and passes over the stage.
Cressida Who's that?
Pandarus That's Antenor. He has a shrewd wit, I can tell you, and he's a
man good enough; he's one o'th' soundest judgement in Troy whosoever, and a
proper man of person. When comes Troilus? I'll show you Troilus anon; if he
see me, you shall see him nod at me.
Cressida Will he give you the nod?
Pandarus You shall see.
Cressida If he do, the rich shall have more.
Enter HECTOR, and passes over the stage.
Pandarus That's Hector, that, that, look you -that there's a fellow! -Go
thy way, Hector! -There's a brave man, niece. O brave Hector! Look how he
looks -there's a countenance! Is't not a brave man?
Cressida O, a brave man.
Pandarus Is a' not? It does a man's heart good. Look you what hacks are on
his helmet! -look you yonder, do you see? Look you there -there's no jesting:
there's laying on, take't off who will, as they say. There be hacks.
Cressida Be those with swords?
Pandarus Swords, anything, he cares not; and the devil come to him, it's
all one. By God's lid it does one's heart good.
Enter PARIS, and passes over the stage.
Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris. Look ye yonder, niece, is't not a
gallant man too, is't not? Why, this is brave now: who said he came hurt home
today? He's not hurt. Why, this will do Helen's heart good now, ha? Would I
could see Troilus now! You shall see Troilus anon.
Enter HELENUS, and passes over the stage.
Cressida Who's that?
Pandarus That's Helenus -I marvel where Troilus is -That's Helenus -I think
he went not forth today -That's Helenus.
Cressida Can Helenus fight, uncle?
Pandarus Helenus? -no; yes, he'll fight indifferent well. I marvel where
Troilus is. Hark, do you not hear the people cry "Troilus"? Helenus is a priest.
Cressida What sneaking fellow comes yonder?
Enter TROILUS, and passes over the stage.
Pandarus Where? Yonder? That's Deiphobus. -'Tis Troilus! There's a man,
niece -hem? Brave Troilus, the prince of chivalry!
Cressida Peace; for shame, peace!
Pandarus Mark him, note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece;
look you how his sword is bloodied and his helm more hacked than Hector's; and
how he looks, and how he goes. O admirable youth! He ne'er saw
three-and-twenty. -Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way! -Had I a sister were a
grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man!
Paris? Paris is dirt to him, and, I warrant, Helen to change would give an eye
to boot.
Enter Common SOLDIERS, and pass over the stage.
Cressida Here come more.
Pandarus Asses, fools, dolts; chaff and bran, chaff and bran; porridge
after meat. I could live and die i'th' eyes of Troilus. Ne'er look, ne'er
look, the eagles are gone -crows and daws, crows and daws. I had rather be
such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece.
Cressida There is among the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus.
Pandarus Achilles? -a drayman, a porter, a very camel.
Cressida Well, well.
Pandarus Well, well? Why, have you any discretion? Have you any eyes? Do
you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood,
learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and so forth, the spice and
salt that seasons a man?
Cressida Ay, a minced man -and then to be baked with no date in the pie,
for then the man's date's out.
Pandarus You are such a woman, a man knows not at what ward you lie.
Cressida Upon my back to defend my belly, upon my wit to defend my wiles,
upon my secrecy to defend mine honesty, my mask to defend my beauty, and you
to defend all these; and at all these wards I lie at a thousand watches.
Pandarus Say one of your watches.
Cressida Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the chiefest of
them too. If I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for
telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it's past
watching.
Enter Troilus' BOY.
Pandarus You are such another!
Boy Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.
Pandarus Where?
Boy At your own house; there he unarms him.
Pandarus Good boy, tell him I come.
[Exit BOY.
I doubt he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece.
Cressida Adieu, uncle.
Pandarus I'll be with you, niece, by and by.
Cressida To bring, uncle?
Pandarus Ay, a token from Troilus.
[Exit PANDARUS.
Cressida By the same token, you are a bawd.
Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice
He offers in another's enterprise;
But more in Troilus thousandfold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be;
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing;
Things won are done -joy's soul lies in the doing.
That she beloved knows nought that knows not this:
Men price the thing ungained more than it is.
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue;
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:
Achievement is command; ungained, beseech.
Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.
[Exit.
+ + + + + +
Scene 3. The Grecian Camp. Before Agamemnon's Tent.
Sennet.
Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, MENELAUS, with OTHERS.
Agamemnon Princes,
What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?
The ample proposition that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below
Fails in the promised largeness: checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest reared,
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infect the sound pine, and diverts his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us
That we come short of our suppose so far
That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand,
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim
And that unbodied figure of the thought
That gave't surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abashed behold our works,
And think them shames which are indeed nought else
But the protractive trials of great Jove
To find persistive constancy in men?
The fineness of which metal is not found
In fortune's love; for then the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affined and kin.
But in the wind and tempest of her frown
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass or matter by itself
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.
Nestor With due observance of thy godly seat,
Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply
Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail
Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk!
But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and anon behold
The strong-ribbed bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements
Like Perseus' horse. Where's then the saucy boat
Whose weak untimbered sides but even now
Co-rivalled greatness? -either to harbour fled,
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so
Doth valour's show and valour's worth divide
In storms of fortune. For, in her ray and brightness,
The herd hath more annoyance by the breese
Than by the tiger. But when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,
And flies fled under shade, why, then the thing of courage,
As roused with rage, with rage doth sympathize,
And with an accent tuned in selfsame key
Returns to chiding fortune.
Ulysses Agamemnon,
Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,
Heart of our numbers, soul, and only spirit
In whom the tempers and the minds of all
Should be shut up, hear what Ulysses speaks.
Besides the applause and approbation -
[To AGAMEMNON.]
The which, most mighty for thy place and sway,
[To NESTOR.]
And thou, most reverend for thy stretched-out life -
I give to both your speeches, which were such
As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece
Should hold up high in brass; and such again
As venerable Nestor, hatched in silver,
Should with a bond of air, strong as the axle-tree
On which the heavens ride, knit all Greek's ears
To his experienced tongue -yet let it please both,
Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.
Agamemnon Speak, Prince of Ithaca, and be't of less expect
That matter needless, of importless burden,
Divide thy lips, than we are confident
When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws
We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.
Ulysses Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down
And the great Hector's sword had lacked a master
But for these instances:
The specialty of rule hath been neglected;
And look how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive
To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
Th' unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other, whose med'cinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,
What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,
Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate,
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked,
- Which is the ladder to all high designs -
The enterprise is sick. How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenity and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows: each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe;
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead;
Force should be right, or, rather, right and wrong
- Between whose endless jar justice resides -
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then everything includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite,
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking;
And this neglection of degree it is
That by a pace goes backward with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general's disdained
By him one step below, he by the next,
The next by him beneath: so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation.
And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length:
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.
Nestor Most wisely hath Ulysses here discovered
The fever whereof all our power is sick.
Agamemnon The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses,
What is the remedy?
Ulysses The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns
The sinew and the forehand of our host,
Having his ear full of his airy fame,
Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent
Lies mocking our designs. With him Patroclus
Upon a lazy bed the livelong day
Breaks scurril jests,
And with ridiculous and awkward action,
- Which, slanderer, he imitation calls -
He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,
Thy topless deputation he puts on,
And, like a strutting player whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
'Twixt his stretched footing and the scaffoldage,
Such to-be-pitied and o'erwrested seeming
He acts thy greatness in; and when he speaks
'Tis like a chime a-mending, with terms unsquared,
Which from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropped
Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff
The large Achilles, on his pressed bed lolling,
From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause,
Cries "Excellent! -'tis Agamemnon just.
Now play me Nestor, hum and stroke thy beard,
As he being dressed to some oration."
That's done as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels, as like as Vulcan and his wife;
Yet god Achilles still cries "Excellent!
'Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus,
Arming to answer in a night alarm."
And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age
Must be the scene of mirth -to cough and spit,
And with a palsy fumbling on his gorget,
Shake in and out the rivet. And at this sport
Sir Valour dies; cries "O, enough, Patroclus,
Or give me ribs of steel; I shall split all
In pleasure of my spleen." And in this fashion
All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,
Severals and generals of grace exact,
Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,
Excitements to the field, or speech for truce,
Success or loss, what is or is not, serves
As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.
Nestor And in the imitation of these twain,
Who, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns
With an imperial voice, many are infect.
Ajax is grown self-willed, and bears his head
In such a rein, in full as proud a place
As broad Achilles, and keeps his tent like him,
Makes factious feasts, rails on our state of war
Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites
- A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint -
To match us in comparisons with dirt,
To weaken and discredit our exposure,
How rank soever rounded in with danger.
Ulysses They tax our policy and call it cowardice,
Count wisdom as no member of the war,
Forestall prescience, and esteem no act
But that of hand. The still and mental parts
That do contrive how many hands shall strike
When fitness calls them on, and know by measure
Of their observant toil the enemy's weight -
Why, this hath not a finger's dignity:
They call this bed-work, mapp'ry, closet-war;
So that the ram that batters down the wall,
For the great swing and rudeness of his poise
They place before his hand that made the engine,
Or those that with the fineness of their souls
By reason guide his execution.
Nestor Let this be granted, and Achilles' horse
Makes many Thetis' sons.
[Tucket.
Agamemnon What trumpet? Look, Menelaus.
Menelaus From Troy.
Enter AENEAS.
Agamemnon What would you 'fore our tent?
Aeneas Is this great Agamemnon's tent, I pray you?
Agamemnon Even this.
Aeneas May one that is a herald and a prince
Do a fair message to his kingly ears?
Agamemnon With surety stronger than Achilles' arm
'Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice
Call Agamemnon head and general.
Aeneas Fair leave and large security. How may
A stranger to those most imperial looks
Know them from eyes of other mortals?
Agamemnon How?
Aeneas Ay: I ask that I might waken reverence
And bid the cheek be ready with a blush
Modest as morning when she coldly eyes
The youthful Phoebus.
Which is that god in office guiding men?
Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?
Agamemnon This Trojan scorns us, or the men of Troy
Are ceremonious courtiers.
Aeneas Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarmed,
As bending angels -that's their fame in peace;
But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls,
Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and, Jove's accord,
Nothing so full of heart. But peace, Aeneas,
Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips.
The worthiness of praise distains his worth
If that he praised himself bring the praise forth;
But what the repining enemy commends,
That breath fame blows; that praise, sole pure, transcends.
Agamemnon Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Aeneas?
Aeneas Ay, Greek, that is my name.
Agamemnon What's your affair, I pray you?
Aeneas Sir, pardon, 'tis for Agamemnon's ears.
Agamemnon He hears nought privately that comes from Troy.
Aeneas Nor I from Troy come not to whisper him.
I bring a trumpet to awake his ear,
To set his sense on the attentive bent,
And then to speak.
Agamemnon Speak frankly as the wind;
It is not Agamemnon's sleeping hour.
That thou shalt know, Trojan, he is awake,
He tells thee so himself.
Aeneas Trumpet, blow loud;
Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;
And every Greek of mettle, let him know
What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud.
[The Trumpets sound.
We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy,
A prince called Hector -Priam is his father -
Who in this dull and long-continued truce
Is rusty grown. He bade me take a trumpet,
And to this purpose speak: "Kings, princes, lords,
If there be one amongst the fair'st of Greece
That holds his honour higher than his ease,
That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril,
That knows his valour and knows not his fear,
That loves his mistress more than in confession
With truant vows to her own lips he loves,
And dare avow her beauty and her worth
In other arms than hers -to him this challenge.
Hector, in view of Trojans and of Greeks,
Shall make it good -or do his best to do it -
He hath a lady wiser, fairer, truer,
Than ever Greek did compass in his arms;
And will tomorrow with his trumpet call
Midway between your tents and walls of Troy
To rouse a Grecian that is true in love.
If any come, Hector shall honour him;
If none, he'll say in Troy, when he retires,
The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth
The splinter of a lance." Even so much.
Agamemnon This shall be told our lovers, Lord Aeneas.
If none of them have soul in such a kind,
We left them all at home; but we are soldiers,
And may that soldier a mere recreant prove
That means not, hath not, or is not in love.
If then one is, or hath, or means to be,
That one meets Hector; if none else, I'll be he.
Nestor Tell him of Nestor: one that was a man
When Hector's grandsire sucked. He is old now;
But if there be not in our Grecian mould
One noble man that hath one spark of fire
To answer for his love, tell him from me
I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver,
And in my vantbrace put this withered brawn,
And, meeting him, will tell him that my lady
Was fairer than his grandam, and as chaste
As may be in the world. His youth in flood,
I'll pawn this truth with my three drops of blood.
Aeneas Now heavens forbid such scarcity of youth.
Ulysses Amen.
Agamemnon Fair Lord Aeneas, let me touch your hand;
To our pavilion shall I lead you first.
Achilles shall have word of this intent;
So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent.
Yourself shall feast with us before you go,
And find the welcome of a noble foe.
[Exeunt.
Manet ULYSSES and NESTOR.
Ulysses Nestor.
Nestor What says Ulysses?
Ulysses I have a young conception in my brain;
Be you my time to bring it to some shape.
Nestor What is't?
Ulysses This 'tis:
Blunt wedges rive hard knots; the seeded pride
That hath to this maturity blown up
In rank Achilles, must or now be cropped,
Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil
To overbulk us all.
Nestor Well, and how?
Ulysses This challenge that the gallant Hector sends,
However it is spread in general name,
Relates in purpose only to Achilles.
Nestor The purpose is perspicuous even as substance
Whose grossness little characters sum up;
And, in the publication, make no strain
But that Achilles, were his brain as barren
As banks of Libya -though, Apollo knows,
'Tis dry enough -will with great speed of judgement,
Ay, with celerity, find Hector's purpose
Pointing on him.
Ulysses And wake him to the answer, think you?
Nestor Yes, 'tis most meet. Who may you else oppose
That can from Hector bring his honour off,
If not Achilles? Though't be a sportful combat,
Yet in the trial much opinion dwells;
For here the Trojans taste our dear'st repute
With their fin'st palate; and trust to me, Ulysses,
Our imputation shall be oddly poised
In this wild action; for the success,
Although particular, shall give a scantling
Of good or bad unto the general,
And in such indexes, although small pricks
To their subsequent volumes, there is seen
The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come at large. It is supposed
He that meets Hector issues from our choice;
And choice, being mutual act of all our souls,
Makes merit her election, and doth boil,
As 'twere from forth us all, a man distilled
Out of our virtues; who miscarrying,
What heart receives from hence the conqu'ring part
To steel a strong opinion to themselves?
Which entertained, limbs are his instruments,
In no less working than are swords and bows
Directive by the limbs.
Ulysses Give pardon to my speech:
Therefore 'tis meet Achilles meet not Hector.
Let us like merchants show foulest wares,
And think perchance they'll sell; if not,
The lustre of the better yet to show
Shall show the better. Do not consent
That ever Hector and Achilles meet;
For both our honour and our shame in this
Are dogged with two strange followers.
Nestor I see them not with my old eyes: -what are they?
Ulysses What glory our Achilles shares from Hector,
Were he not proud we all should share with him;
But he already is too insolent,
And we were better parch in Afric sun
Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes
Should he 'scape Hector fair. If he were foiled,
Why, then we did our main opinion crush
In taint of our best man. No, make a lott'ry,
And by device let blockish Ajax draw
The sort to fight with Hector. Among ourselves
Give him allowance as the worthier man,
For that will physic the great Myrmidon,
Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall
His crest that prouder than blue Iris bends.
If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off,
We'll dress him up in voices; if he fail,
Yet go we under our opinion still
That we have better men. But, hit or miss,
Our project's life this shape of sense assumes:
Ajax employed plucks down Achilles' plumes.
Nestor Now, Ulysses, I begin to relish thy advice;
And I will give a taste of it forthwith
To Agamemnon. Go we to him straight.
Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone
Must tar the mastiffs on, as 'twere their bone.
[Exeunt.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
ACT 2.
Scene 1. The Grecian Camp.
Enter AJAX and THERSITES.
Ajax Thersites!
Thersites Agamemnon: -how if he had boils, full, all over, generally?
Ajax Thersites!
Thersites And those boils did run? -say so; did not the general run then?
Were not that a botchy core?
Ajax Dog!
Thersites Then would come some matter from him: I see none now.
Ajax Thou bitch-wolf's son, canst thou not hear? Feel then.
[Strikes him.
Thersites The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!
Ajax Speak then, thou vinewed'st leaven, speak; I will beat thee into
handsomeness.
Thersites I shall sooner rail thee into wit and holiness; but I think thy
horse will sooner con an oration than thou learn a prayer without book. Thou
canst strike, canst thou? A red murrain o' thy jade's tricks!
Ajax Toadstool, learn me the proclamation.
Thersites Dost thou think I have no sense, thou strik'st me thus?
Ajax The proclamation!
Thersites Thou art proclaimed a fool, I think.
Ajax Do not, porpentine, do not; my fingers itch.
Thersites I would thou didst itch from head to foot, and I had the
scratching of thee; I would make thee the loathsom'st scab in Greece.
Ajax I say the proclamation.
Thersites Thou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles, and thou art
as full of envy at his greatness as Cerberus is at Proserpina's beauty, ay,
that thou bark'st at him.
Ajax Mistress Thersites.
Thersites Thou shouldst strike him.
Ajax Cobloaf!
Thersites He would pun thee into shivers with his fist, as a sailor breaks
a biscuit.
Ajax You whoreson cur!
[Beats him.
Thersites Do, do!
Ajax Thou stool for a witch.
Thersites Ay, do, do, thou sodden-witted lord; thou hast no more brain than
I have in mine elbows: an asinico may tutor thee. Thou scurvy-valiant ass,
thou art here but to thrash Trojans, and thou art bought and sold among those
of any wit, like a barbarian slave. If thou use to beat me, I will begin at
thy heel and tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no bowels thou.
Ajax You dog.
Thersites You scurvy lord.
Ajax You cur.
[Beats him.
Thersites Mars his idiot! Do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do!
Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS.
Achilles Why, how now, Ajax? Wherefore do you this?
How now, Thersites? What's the matter man?
Thersites You see him there, do you?
Achilles Ay -what's the matter?
Thersites Nay, look upon him.
Achilles So I do -what's the matter?
Thersites Nay, but regard him well.
Achilles `Well' -why, I do so.
Thersites But yet you look not well upon him; for whosoever you take him to
be, he is Ajax.
Achilles I know that, fool.
Thersites Ay, but that fool knows not himself.
Ajax Therefore I beat thee.
Thersites Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! His evasions have
ears thus long. I have bobbed his brain more than he has beat my bones. I will
buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the ninth part
of a sparrow. This lord, Achilles -Ajax who wears his wit in his belly and his
guts in his head -I'll tell you what I say of him.
Achilles What?
Thersites I say, this Ajax -
[AJAX makes to strike him.
Achilles Nay, good Ajax.
Thersites - has not so much wit -
Achilles Nay, I must hold you.
Thersites - as will stop the eye of Helen's needle, for whom he comes to
fight.
Achilles Peace, fool!
Thersites I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not: he
there, that he, look you there.
Ajax O thou damned cur, I shall -
Achilles Will you set your wit to a fool's?
Thersites No, I warrant you, for a fool's will shame it.
Patroclus Good words, Thersites.
Achilles What's the quarrel?
Ajax I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenor of the proclamation, and he
rails upon me.
Thersites I serve thee not.
Ajax Well, go to, go to.
Thersites I serve here voluntary.
Achilles Your last service was sufferance, 'twas not voluntary; no man is
beaten voluntary. Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.
Thersites E'en so -a great deal of your wit, too, lies in your sinews, or
else there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch if he knock out either of
your brains: he were as a good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.
Achilles What, with me too, Thersites?
Thersites There's Ulysses and old Nestor -whose wit was mouldy ere your
grandsires had nails on their toes -yoke you like draught-oxen, and make you
plough up the wars.
Achilles What? What?
Thersites Yes, good sooth. To, Achilles! To, Ajax, to -
Ajax I shall cut out your tongue.
Thersites 'Tis no matter, I shall speak as much as thou afterwards.
Patroclus No more words, Thersites; peace!
Thersites I will hold my peace when Achilles' brach bids me, shall I?
Achilles There's for you, Patroclus.
Thersites I will see you hanged like clotpolls ere I come any more to your
tents. I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools.
[Exit.
Patroclus A good riddance.
Achilles Marry, this, sir, is proclaimed through all our host:
That Hector by the fifth hour of the sun
Will, with a trumpet, 'twixt our tents and Troy
Tomorrow morning call some knight to arms
That hath a stomach, and such a one that dare
Maintain -I know not what -'tis trash. Farewell.
Ajax Farewell. Who shall answer him?
Achilles I know not; 'tis put to lott'ry: otherwise
He knew his man.
Ajax O, meaning you? I will go learn more of it.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 2. Troy. A Room in Priam's Palace.
Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and HELENUS.
Priam After so many hours, lives, speeches spent,
Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:
"Deliver Helen, and all damage else
(As honour, loss of time, travail, expense,
Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumed
In hot digestion of this cormorant war)
Shall be struck off." -Hector, what say you to't?
Hector Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I,
As far as touches my particular,
Yet, dread Priam,
There is no lady of more softer bowels,
More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,
More ready to cry out "Who knows what follows?"
Than Hector is. The wound of peace is surety,
Surety secure; but modest doubt is called
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To th' bottom of the worst. Let Helen go.
Since the first sword was drawn about this question,
Every tithe soul 'mongst many thousand dismes
Hath been as dear as Helen -I mean, of ours.
If we have lost so many tenths of ours
To guard a thing not ours, nor worth to us,
Had it our name, the value of one ten,
What merit's in that reason which denies
The yielding of her up?
Troilus Fie, fie, my brother!
Weigh you the worth and honour of a king
So great as our dread father in a scale
Of common ounces? Will you with counters sum
The past-proportion of his infinite,
And buckle in a waist most fathomless
With spans and inches so diminutive
As fears and reasons? Fie, for godly shame!
Helenus No marvel though you bite so sharp at reasons,
You are so empty of them. Should not our father
Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons
Because your speech hath none that tells him so?
Troilus You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest;
You fur your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons:
You know an enemy intends you harm,
You know a sword employed is perilous,
And reason flies the object of all harm.
Who marvels then when Helenus beholds
A Grecian and his sword, if he do set
The very wings of reason to his heels
And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,
Or like a star disorbed? Nay, if we talk of reason,
Let's shut our gates and sleep: manhood and honour
Should have hare hearts would they but fat their thoughts
With this crammed reason. Reason and respect
Make livers pale and lustihood deject.
Hector Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost
The holding.
Troilus What's aught but as 'tis valued?
Hector But value dwells not in particular will;
It holds his estimate and dignity
As well wherein 'tis precious of itself
As in the prizer. 'Tis mad idolatry
To make the service greater than the god;
And the will dotes that is inclinable
To what infectiously itself affects,
Without some image of th' affected merit.
Troilus I take today a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will;
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgement. How may I avoid,
Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I choose? There can be no evasion
To blench from this and to stand firm by honour.
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant
When we have spoiled them; nor the remainder viands
We do not throw in unrespective sieve
Because we now are full. It was thought meet
Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks:
Your breath of full consent bellied his sails;
The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce
And did him service; he touched the ports desired,
And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive
He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo's and makes stale the morning.
Why keep we her? -The Grecians keep our aunt:
Is she worth keeping? -Why, she is a pearl
Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships,
And turned crowned kings to merchants.
If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went,
- As you must needs, for you all cried "Go, go!" -
If you'll confess he brought home worthy prize,
- As you must needs, for you all clapped your hands
And cried "Inestimable!" -why do you now
The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,
And do a deed that never fortune did:
Beggar the estimation which you prized
Richer than sea and land? O theft most base,
That we have stol'n what we do fear to keep!
But thieves unworthy of a thing so stol'n,
That in their country did them that disgrace
We fear to warrant in our native place.
Cassandra [Within.] Cry, Trojans, cry!
Priam What noise? What shriek is this?
Troilus 'Tis our mad sister; I do know her voice.
Cassandra [Within.] Cry, Trojans!
Hector It is Cassandra.
Enter CASSANDRA with her hair about her ears.
Cassandra Cry, Trojans, cry! Lend me ten thousand eyes,
And I will fill them with prophetic tears.
Hector Peace, sister, peace!
Cassandra Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled old,
Soft infancy that nothing can but cry,
Add to my clamour: -let us pay betimes
A moiety of that mass of moan to come.
Cry, Trojans, cry! -practise your eyes with tears.
Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilium stand;
Our firebrand brother Paris burns us all.
Cry, Trojans, cry! A Helen and a woe!
Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go.
[Exit.
Hector Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains
Of divination in our sister work
Some touches of remorse? Or is your blood
So madly hot that no discourse of reason,
Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,
Can qualify the same?
Troilus Why, brother Hector,
We may not think the justness of each act
Such and no other than event doth form it,
Nor once deject the courage of our minds,
Because Cassandra's mad. Her brainsick raptures
Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel
Which hath our several honours all engaged
To make it gracious. For my private part,
I am no more touched than all Priam's sons;
And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us
Such things as might offend the weakest spleen
To fight for and maintain.
Paris Else might the world convince of levity
As well my undertakings as your counsels;
But I attest the gods, your full consent
Gave wings to my propension, and cut off
All fears attending on so dire a project.
For what, alas, can these my single arms?
What propugnation is in one man's valour
To stand the push and enmity of those
This quarrel would excite? Yet I protest,
Were I alone to pass the difficulties,
And had as ample power as I have will,
Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done,
Nor faint in the pursuit.
Priam Paris, you speak
Like one besotted on your sweet delights.
You have the honey still, but these the gall -
So to be valiant is no praise at all.
Paris Sir, I propose not merely to myself
The pleasures such a beauty brings with it,
But I would have the soil of her fair rape
Wiped off in honourable keeping her.
What treason were it to the ransacked queen,
Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,
Now to deliver her possession up
On terms of base compulsion! Can it be
That so degenerate a strain as this
Should once set footing in your generous bosoms?
There's not the meanest spirit on our party
Without a heart to dare or sword to draw
When Helen is defended; nor none so noble
Whose life were ill bestowed or death unfamed
Where Helen is the subject. Then, I say,
Well may we fight for her whom we know well
The world's large spaces cannot parallel.
Hector Paris and Troilus, you have both said well;
And on the cause and question now in hand
Have glozed but superficially -not much
Unlike young men whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy.
The reasons you allege do more conduce
To the hot passion of distempered blood
Than to make up a free determination
'Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge
Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
Of any true decision. Nature craves
All dues be rendered to their owners: now,
What nearer debt in all humanity
Than wife is to the husband? If this law
Of nature be corrupted through affection,
And that great minds, of partial indulgence
To their benumbed wills, resist the same,
There is a law in each well-ordered nation
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.
If Helen then be wife to Sparta's king,
As it is known she is, these moral laws
Of nature and of nations speak aloud
To have her back returned. Thus to persist
In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,
But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion
Is this in way of truth; yet ne'ertheless,
My sprightly brethren, I propend to you
In resolution to keep Helen still;
For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependence
Upon our joint and several dignities.
Troilus Why, there you touched the life of our design:
Were it not glory that we more affected
Than the performance of our heaving spleens,
I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood
Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,
She is a theme of honour and renown,
A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,
Whose present courage may beat down our foes,
And fame in time to come canonize us;
For I presume brave Hector would not lose
So rich advantage of a promised glory
As smiles upon the forehead of this action
For the wide world's revenue.
Hector I am yours,
You valiant offspring of great Priamus.
I have a roisting challenge sent amongst
The dull and factious nobles of the Greeks
Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits.
I was advertised their great general slept
Whilst emulation in the army crept:
This I presume will wake him.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 3. The Grecian Camp. Before Achilles' Tent.
Enter THERSITES solus.
Thersites How now, Thersites! What, lost in the labyrinth of thy fury?
Shall the elephant Ajax carry it thus? He beats me, and I rail at him -O
worthy satisfaction! Would it were otherwise: that I could beat him whilst he
railed at me. 'Sfoot, I'll learn to conjure and raise devils but I'll see some
issue of my spiteful execrations. Then there's Achilles -a rare engineer! If
Troy be not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till they
fall of themselves. O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou
art Jove the king of gods; and Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy
caduceus if thou take not that little little less than little wit from them
that they have; which short-armed ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce
it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider without drawing their
massy irons and cutting the web. After this, the vengeance on the whole camp
-or rather the Neapolitan bone-ache, for that methinks is the curse dependent
on those that war for a placket. I have said my prayers, and devil Envy say
`Amen'. What ho! My Lord Achilles!
Enter PATROCLUS.
Patroclus Who's there? Thersites? Good Thersites, come in and rail.
Thersites If I could have remembered a gilt counterfeit, thou wouldst not
have slipped out of my contemplation; but it is no matter -thyself upon
thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great
revenue! Heaven bless thee from a tutor, and discipline come not near thee!
Let thy blood be thy direction till thy death! Then if she that lays thee out
says thou art a fair corpse, I'll be sworn and sworn upon't she never shrouded
any but lazars. Amen. Where's Achilles?
Patroclus What, art thou devout? Wast thou in a prayer?
Thersites Ay, the heavens hear me!
Enter ACHILLES.
Achilles Who's there?
Patroclus Thersites, my lord.
Achilles Where, where? -art thou come? Why, my cheese, my digestion, why
hast thou not served thyself in to my table so many meals? Come, what's
Agamemnon?
Thersites Thy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what's Achilles?
Patroclus Thy lord, Thersites. Then tell me, I pray thee, what's thyself?
Thersites Thy knower, Patroclus. Then tell me, Patroclus, what art thou?
Patroclus Thou mayst tell that know'st.
Achilles O tell, tell.
Thersites I'll decline the whole question: Agamemnon commands Achilles,
Achilles is my lord, I am Patroclus' knower, and Patroclus is a fool.
Patroclus You rascal.
Thersites Peace, fool, I have not done.
Achilles He is a privileged man; proceed, Thersites.
Thersites Agamemnon is a fool, Achilles is a fool, Thersites is a fool,
and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.
Achilles Derive this, come.
Thersites Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles, Achilles is a
fool to be commanded of Agamemnon, Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool,
and Patroclus is a fool positive.
Patroclus Why am I a fool?
Thersites Make that demand to the Creator; it suffices me thou art. Look
you, who comes here?
Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, AJAX and CALCHAS.
Achilles Patroclus, I'll speak with nobody. Come in with me, Thersites.
[Exit.
Thersites Here is such patchery, such juggling, and such knavery! All the
argument is a whore and a cuckold; a good quarrel to draw emulous factions,
and bleed to death upon. Now the dry serpigo on the subject, and war and
lechery confound all!
[Exit.
Agamemnon Where is Achilles?
Patroclus Within his tent, but ill disposed, my lord.
Agamemnon Let it be known to him that we are here.
He sate our messengers, and we lay by
Our appertainments, visiting of him.
Let him be told so, lest perchance he think
We dare not move the question of our place,
Or know not what we are.
Patroclus I shall so say to him.
[Exit.
Ulysses We saw him at the opening of his tent;
He is not sick.
Ajax Yes, lion-sick, sick of proud heart; you may call it melancholy if you
will favour the man, but by my head it is pride. But why, why? Let him show us
the cause. A word, my lord.
[Takes AGAMEMNON aside.
Nestor What moves Ajax thus to bay at him?
Ulysses Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him.
Nestor Who, Thersites?
Ulysses He.
Nestor Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument.
Ulysses No, you see he is his argument that has his argument, Achilles.
Nestor All the better: their fraction is more our wish than their faction;
but it was a strong council that a fool could disunite.
Ulysses The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.
Re-enter PATROCLUS.
Here comes Patroclus.
Nestor No Achilles with him?
Ulysses The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs
for necessity, not for flexure.
Patroclus Achilles bids me say he is much sorry
If anything more than your sport and pleasure
Did move your greatness and this noble state
To call upon him; he hopes it is no other
But, for your health and your digestion sake,
An after-dinner's breath.
Agamemnon Hear you, Patroclus:
We are too well acquainted with these answers;
But his evasion winged thus swift with scorn
Cannot outfly our apprehensions.
Much attribute he hath, and much the reason
Why we ascribe it to him; yet all his virtues,
Not virtuously on his own part beheld,
Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss,
Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish
Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him
We came to speak with him, and you shall not sin
If you do say we think him overproud
And underhonest, in self-assumption greater
Than in the note of judgement; and worthier than himself
Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on,
Disguise the holy strength of their command,
And underwrite in an observing kind
His humorous predominance -yea, watch
His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if
The passage and whole carriage of this action
Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and add
That if he overhold his price so much
We'll none of him, but let him, like an engine
Not portable, lie under this report:
"Bring action hither, this cannot go to war".
A stirring dwarf we do allowance give
Before a sleeping giant. Tell him so.
Patroclus I shall, and bring his answer presently.
[Exit.
Agamemnon In second voice we'll not be satisfied;
We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you.
[Exit ULYSSES.
Ajax What is he more than another?
Agamemnon No more than what he thinks he is.
Ajax Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better man than I
am?
Agamemnon No question.
Ajax Will you subscribe his thought, and say he is?
Agamemnon No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less
noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable.
Ajax Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not what it is.
Agamemnon Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the fairer. He
that is proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his
own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed
in the praise.
Re-enter ULYSSES.
Ajax I do hate a proud man as I hate the engendering of toads.
Nestor [Aside.] And yet he loves himself -is't not strange?
Ulysses Achilles will not to the field tomorrow.
Agamemnon What's his excuse?
Ulysses He doth rely on none,
But carries on the stream of his dispose
Without observance or respect of any,
In will peculiar and in self-admission.
Agamemnon Why, will he not upon our fair request
Untent his person and share the air with us?
Ulysses Things small as nothing, for request's sake only,
He makes important; possessed he is with greatness,
And speaks not to himself but with a pride
That quarrels at self-breath. Imagined worth
Holds in his blood such swoll'n and hot discourse
That 'twixt his mental and his active parts
Kingdomed Achilles in commotion rages
And batters 'gainst himself. What should I say?
He is so plaguy proud that the death-tokens of it
Cry "No recovery".
Agamemnon Let Ajax go to him.
Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent;
'Tis said he holds you well, and will be led
At your request a little from himself.
Ulysses O Agamemnon, let it not be so.
We'll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes
When they go from Achilles. Shall the proud lord
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam,
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts, save such as do revolve
And ruminate himself -shall he be worshipped
Of that we hold an idol more than he?
No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord
Must not so stale his palm, nobly acquired,
Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,
As amply titled as Achilles is,
By going to Achilles.
That were to enlard his fat-already pride,
And add more coals to Cancer when he burns
With entertaining great Hyperion.
This lord go to him? Jupiter forbid,
And say in thunder "Achilles, go to him."
Nestor [Aside.] O, this is well; he rubs the vein of him.
Diomedes [Aside.] And how his silence drinks up this applause!
Ajax If I go to him, with my armed fist
I'll pash him o'er the face.
Agamemnon O no, you shall not go.
Ajax And a' be proud with me, I'll feeze his pride.
Let me go to him.
Ulysses Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.
Ajax A paltry, insolent fellow.
Nestor [Aside.] How he describes himself!
Ajax Can he not be sociable?
Ulysses [Aside.] The raven chides blackness.
Ajax I'll let his humours' blood.
Agamemnon [Aside.] He will be the physician that should be the patient.
Ajax And all men were o' my mind -
Ulysses [Aside.] Wit would be out of fashion.
Ajax - a' should not bear it so; a' should eat swords first. Shall pride
carry it?
Nestor [Aside.] And 'twould, you'd carry half.
Ulysses [Aside.] A' would have ten shares.
Ajax I will knead him, I'll make him supple.
Nestor [Aside.] He's not yet through warm. Force him with praises; pour in,
pour in, his ambition is dry.
Ulysses [To AGAMEMNON.] My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.
Nestor Our noble general, do not do so.
Diomedes You must prepare to fight without Achilles.
Ulysses Why, 'tis this naming of him doth him harm.
Here is a man -but 'tis before his face,
I will be silent.
Nestor Wherefore should you so?
He is not emulous, as Achilles is.
Ulysses Know the whole world, he is as valiant.
Ajax A whoreson dog, that shall palter thus with us. Would he were a Trojan!
Nestor What a vice were it in Ajax now -
Ulysses If he were proud -
Diomedes Or covetous of praise -
Ulysses Ay, or surly borne -
Diomedes Or strange, or self-affected.
Ulysses Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure;
Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck;
Famed be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature
Thrice famed beyond, beyond all erudition;
But he that disciplined thine arms to fight,
Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
And give him half; and for thy vigour,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield
To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,
Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines
Thy spacious and dilated parts. Here's Nestor,
Instructed by the antiquary times:
He must, he is, he cannot but be wise;
But pardon, father Nestor, were your days
As green as Ajax', and your brain so tempered,
You should not have the eminence of him,
But be as Ajax.
Ajax [To NESTOR.] Shall I call you father?
Nestor Ay, my good son.
Diomedes Be ruled by him, Lord Ajax.
Ulysses There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles
Keeps thicket. Please it our great general
To call together all his state of war;
Fresh kings are come to Troy. Tomorrow
We must with all our main of power stand fast;
And here's a lord -come knights from east to west
And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.
Agamemnon Go we to council; let Achilles sleep.
Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.
[Exeunt.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
ACT 3.
Scene 1. Troy. Priam's Palace.
Music sounds within.
Enter PANDARUS and a SERVANT.
Pandarus Friend, you, pray you a word. Do not you follow the young Lord
Paris?
Servant Ay sir, when he goes before me.
Pandarus You depend upon him, I mean.
Servant Sir, I do depend upon the Lord.
Pandarus You depend upon a noble gentleman; I must needs praise him.
Servant The Lord be praised!
Pandarus You know me, do you not?
Servant Faith, sir, superficially.
Pandarus Friend, know me better: I am the Lord Pandarus.
Servant I hope I shall know your honour better.
Pandarus I do desire it.
Servant You are in the state of grace?
Pandarus Grace? Not so, friend; honour and lordship are my titles. What
music is this?
Servant I do but partly know, sir: it is music in parts.
Pandarus Know you the musicians?
Servant Wholly, sir.
Pandarus Who play they to?
Servant To the hearers, sir.
Pandarus At whose pleasure, friend?
Servant At mine, sir, and theirs that love music.
Pandarus Command, I mean, friend.
Servant Who shall I command, sir?
Pandarus Friend, we understand not one another: I am too courtly, and thou
art too cunning. At whose request do these men play?
Servant That's to't indeed, sir. Marry, sir, at the request of Paris my
lord, who's there in person; with him the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of
beauty, love's visible soul.
Pandarus Who, my cousin Cressida?
Servant No, sir, Helen. Could not you find out that by her attributes?
Pandarus It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the Lady Cressida.
I come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troilus. I will make a complimental
assault upon him, for my business seethes.
Servant [Aside.] Sodden business -there's a stewed phrase indeed!
Enter PARIS and HELEN with ATTENDANTS.
Pandarus Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company! Fair
desires in all fair measure fairly guide them -especially to you, fair queen,
fair thoughts be your fair pillow!
Helen Dear lord, you are full of fair words.
Pandarus You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen. Fair prince, here is
good broken music.
Paris You have broke it, cousin; and by my life you shall make it whole
again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your performance. Nell, he is
full of harmony.
Pandarus Truly, lady, no.
Helen O sir!
Pandarus Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude.
Paris Well said, my lord; well, you say so in fits.
Pandarus I have business to my lord, dear queen. My lord, will you
vouchsafe me a word?
Helen Nay, this shall not hedge us out; we'll hear you sing, certainly.
Pandarus Well, sweet queen, you are pleasant with me. But, marry, thus, my
lord: my dear lord and most esteemed friend, your brother Troilus -
Helen My Lord Pandarus, honey-sweet lord -
Pandarus Go to, sweet queen, go to -commends himself most affectionately to
you -
Helen You shall not bob us out of our melody; if you do, our melancholy
upon your head.
Pandarus Sweet queen, sweet queen, that's a sweet queen i'faith -
Helen And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.
Pandarus Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall it not in truth,
la. Nay, I care not for such words; no, no. -And, my lord, he desires you that
if the King call for him at supper, you will make his excuse.
Helen My Lord Pandarus -
Pandarus What says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen?
Paris What exploit's in hand? Where sups he tonight?
Helen Nay, but, my lord -
Pandarus What says my sweet queen? My cousin will fall out with you.
Helen You must not know where he sups.
Paris I'll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida.
Pandarus No, no, no such matter, you are wide; come, your disposer is sick.
Paris Well, I'll make excuse.
Pandarus Ay, good my lord. Why should you say Cressida? No, your poor
disposer's sick.
Paris I spy.
Pandarus You spy? What do you spy? Come, give me an instrument. Now, sweet
queen.
Helen Why, this is kindly done.
Pandarus My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet queen.
Helen She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my Lord Paris.
Pandarus He! No, she'll none of him; they two are twain.
Helen Falling in after falling out may make them three.
Pandarus Come, come, I'll hear no more of this. I'll sing you a song now.
Helen Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine
forehead.
Pandarus Ay, you may, you may.
Helen Let thy song be love: this love will undo us all. O Cupid, Cupid,
Cupid!
Pandarus Love? Ay, that it shall, i'faith.
Paris Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love.
Pandarus In good troth, it begins so:
[Sings.]
Love, love, nothing but love, still love, still more!
For, O, love's bow
Shoots buck and doe;
The shaft confounds
Not that it wounds,
But tickles still the sore.
These lovers cry "Oh ho", they die;
Yet that which seems the wound to kill
Doth turn "Oh ho" to "Ha, ha, he"
So dying love lives still.
"Oh ho" a while, but "Ha, ha, ha"
"Oh ho" groans out for "Ha, ha, ha"
Heigh ho!
Helen In love, i'faith, to the very tip of the nose.
Paris He eats nothing but doves, love, and that breeds hot blood, and hot
blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is
love.
Pandarus Is this the generation of love? Hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot
deeds? Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who's
afield today?
Paris Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy. I
would fain have armed today, but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my
brother Troilus went not?
Helen He hangs the lip at something. You know all, Lord Pandarus.
Pandarus Not I, honey-sweet queen; I long to hear how they sped today. [To
PARIS.] You'll remember your brother's excuse?
Paris To a hair.
Pandarus Farewell, sweet queen.
Helen Commend me to your niece.
Pandarus I will, sweet queen.
[Exit.
[Sound a retreat.
Paris They're come from field; let us to Priam's hall
To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you
To help unarm our Hector: his stubborn buckles,
With these your white enchanting fingers touched,
Shall more obey than to the edge of steel
Or force of Greekish sinews: -you shall do more
Than all the island kings -disarm great Hector.
Helen 'Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris.
Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty
Gives us more palm in beauty than we have,
Yea, overshines ourself.
Paris Sweet, above thought I love thee.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 2. Troy. Pandarus' Orchard.
Enter PANDARUS and Troilus' MAN, meeting.
Pandarus How now, where's thy master? At my cousin Cressida's?
Man No, sir, he stays for you to conduct him thither.
Enter TROILUS.
Pandarus O here he comes. How now, how now?
Troilus Sirrah, walk off.
[Exit MAN.
Pandarus Have you seen my cousin?
Troilus No, Pandarus; I stalk about her door
Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks
Staying for waftage. O be thou my Charon,
And give me swift transportance to those fields
Where I may wallow in the lily beds
Proposed for the deserver! O gentle Pandar,
From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings
And fly with me to Cressid.
Pandarus Walk here i'th' orchard; I'll bring her straight.
[Exit.
Troilus I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
Th' imaginary relish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense. What will it be
When that the wat'ry palates taste indeed
Love's thrice-repured nectar? Death, I fear me,
Sounding destruction, or some joy too fine,
Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness
For the capacity of my ruder powers.
I fear it much; and I do fear besides
That I shall lose distinction in my joys,
As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
The enemy flying.
Re-enter PANDARUS.
Pandarus She's making her ready, she'll come straight. You must be witty
now; she does so blush, and fetches her wind so short as if she were frayed
with a sprite. I'll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain! She fetches her
breath as short as a new ta'en sparrow.
[Exit.
Troilus Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom.
My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse,
And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring
The eye of majesty.
Re-enter PANDARUS, and CRESSIDA veiled.
Pandarus Come, come, what need you blush? Shame's a baby.
[To TROILUS.] Here she is now; swear the oaths now to her that you have
sworn to me.
[To CRESSIDA.] What, are you gone again? You must be watched ere you be
made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; and you draw backward
we'll put you i'th' fills.
[To TROILUS.] Why do you not speak to her?
[To CRESSIDA.] Come, draw this curtain, and let's see your picture. Alas
the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! And 'twere dark, you'd close
sooner.
[To TROILUS.] So, so; rub on and kiss the mistress. How now, a kiss in
fee-farm! Build there, carpenter, the air is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your
hearts out ere I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i'th'
river. Go to, go to.
Troilus You have bereft me of all words, lady.
Pandarus Words pay no debts, give her deeds; but she'll bereave you o'th'
deeds too, if she call your activity in question. What, billing again? Here's
"In witness whereof the parties interchangeably" -Come in, come in; I'll go
get a fire.
[Exit.
Cressida Will you walk in, my lord?
Troilus O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus!
Cressida Wished, my lord? The gods grant -O my lord!
Troilus What should they grant? What makes this pretty abruption? What too
curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?
Cressida More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.
Troilus Fears make devils of cherubins; they never see truly.
Cressida Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than
blind reason stumbling without fear. To fear the worst oft cures the worse.
Troilus O let my lady apprehend no fear; in all Cupid's pageant there is
presented no monster.
Cressida Nor nothing monstrous neither?
Troilus Nothing but our undertakings, when we vow to weep seas, live in
fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our mistress to devise
imposition enough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed. This is the
monstruosity in love, lady: that the will is infinite, and the execution
confined; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to limit.
Cressida They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and
yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the
perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one. They that
have the voice of lions and the act of hares, are they not monsters?
Troilus Are there such? Such are not we. Praise us as we are tasted, allow
us as we prove. Our head shall go bare till merit crown it. No perfection in
reversion shall have a praise in present. We will not name desert before his
birth, and, being born, his addition shall be humble. Few words to fair faith.
Troilus shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst shall be a mock
for his truth, and what truth can speak truest, not truer than Troilus.
Cressida Will you walk in, my lord?
Re-enter PANDARUS.
Pandarus What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?
Cressida Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.
Pandarus I thank you for that: if my lord get a boy of you, you'll give him
me. Be true to my lord; if he flinch, chide me for it.
Troilus You know now your hostages: your uncle's word, and my firm faith.
Pandarus Nay, I'll give my word for her too. Our kindred, though they be
long ere they are wooed, they are constant being won: they are burrs, I can
tell you -they'll stick where they are thrown.
Cressida Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart.
Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day
For many weary months.
Troilus Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
Cressida Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord,
With the first glance that ever -pardon me,
If I confess much you will play the tyrant.
I love you now, but till now not so much
But I might master it. In faith I lie:
My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown
Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!
Why have I blabbed? Who shall be true to us
When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
But, though I loved you well, I wooed you not;
And yet, good faith, I wished myself a man,
Or that we women had men's privilege
Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,
For in this rapture I shall surely speak
The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,
Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws
My very soul of counsel from me. Stop my mouth.
Troilus And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.
[Kisses her.
Pandarus Pretty, i'faith.
Cressida My lord, I do beseech you pardon me;
'Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss.
I am ashamed. O heavens! what have I done?
For this time will I take my leave, my lord.
Troilus Your leave, sweet Cressid?
Pandarus Leave? And you take leave till tomorrow morning -
Cressida Pray you content you.
Troilus What offends you, lady?
Cressida Sir, mine own company.
Troilus You cannot shun yourself.
Cressida Let me go and try.
I have a kind of self resides with you,
But an unkind self, that itself will leave
To be another's fool. Where is my wit?
I would be gone; I speak I know not what.
Troilus Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.
Cressida Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love,
And fell so roundly to a large confession
To angle for your thoughts. But you are wise,
Or else you love not; for to be wise and love
Exceeds man's might -that dwells with gods above.
Troilus O that I thought it could be in a woman
- As, if it can, I will presume in you -
To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love,
To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays;
Or that persuasion could but thus convince me
That my integrity and truth to you
Might be affronted with the match and weight
Of such a winnowed purity in love:
How were I then uplifted! But alas,
I am as true as truth's simplicity,
And simpler than the infancy of truth.
Cressida In that I'll war with you.
Troilus O virtuous fight,
When right with right wars who shall be most right!
True swains in love shall in the world to come
Approve their truths by Troilus; when their rhymes,
Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,
Wants similes, truth tired with iteration,
- As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to th' centre -
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
As truth's authentic author to be cited,
"As true as Troilus" shall crown up the verse
And sanctify the numbers.
Cressida Prophet may you be!
If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
When time is old and hath forgot itself,
When water-drops have worn the stones of Troy,
And blind oblivion swallowed cities up,
And mighty states characterless are grated
To dusty nothing, yet let memory
From false to false among false maids in love,
Upbraid my falsehood. When they've said "As false
As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,
As fox to lamb, or wolf to heifer's calf,
Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son",
Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,
"As false as Cressid".
Pandarus Go to, a bargain made. Seal it, seal it, I'll be the witness. Here
I hold your hand, here my cousin's. If ever you prove false one to another,
since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all pitiful
goers-between be called to the world's end after my name: call them all
Pandars. Let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all
brokers-between Pandars. Say Amen.
Troilus Amen.
Cressida Amen.
Pandarus Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber with bed; which bed,
because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death. Away.
[Exeunt TROILUS and CRESSIDA.
And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here
Bed, chamber, and pander to provide this gear!
[Exit.
+ + + + + +
Scene 3. The Grecian Camp.
Flourish.
Enter ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS.
Calchas Now, princes, for the service I have done you,
Th' advantage of the time prompts me aloud
To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind
That, through the sight I bear in things to come,
I have abandoned Troy, left my possession,
Incurred a traitor's name, exposed myself
From certain and possessed conveniences
To doubtful fortunes, sequest'ring from me all
That time, acquaintance, custom and condition
Made tame and most familiar to my nature;
And here, to do you service, am become
As new into the world, strange, unacquainted.
I do beseech you, as in way of taste,
To give me now a little benefit
Out of those many registered in promise
Which, you say, live to come in my behalf.
Agamemnon What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? Make demand.
Calchas You have a Trojan prisoner called Antenor
Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear.
Oft have you -often have you thanks therefore -
Desired my Cressid in right great exchange,
Whom Troy hath still denied; but this Antenor
I know is such a wrest in their affairs
That their negotiations all must slack,
Wanting his manage, and they will almost
Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,
In change of him. Let him be sent, great princes,
And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
Shall quite strike off all service I have done
In most accepted pain.
Agamemnon Let Diomedes bear him,
And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have
What he requests of us. Good Diomed,
Furnish you fairly for this interchange;
Withal bring word if Hector will tomorrow
Be answered in his challenge. Ajax is ready.
Diomedes This shall I undertake, and 'tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.
[Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS.
Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS before their tent.
Ulysses Achilles stands i'th' entrance of his tent;
Please it our general to pass strangely by him,
As if he were forgot; and, princes all,
Lay negligent and loose regard upon him;
I will come last. 'Tis like he'll question me
Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turned on him;
If so, I have derision medicinable
To use between your strangeness and his pride,
Which his own will shall have desire to drink.
It may do good: pride hath no other glass
To show itself but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.
Agamemnon We'll execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along.
So do each lord, and either greet him not
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not looked on. I will lead the way.
Achilles What, comes the general to speak with me?
You know my mind; I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy.
Agamemnon What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?
Nestor Would you, my lord, aught with the general?
Achilles No.
Nestor Nothing, my lord.
Agamemnon The better.
[Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR.
Achilles Good day, good day.
Menelaus How do you? How do you?
[Exit.
Achilles What, does the cuckold scorn me?
Ajax How now, Patroclus?
Achilles Good morrow, Ajax.
Ajax Ha?
Achilles Good morrow.
Ajax Ay, and good next day too.
[Exit.
Achilles What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?
Patroclus They pass by strangely. They were used to bend,
To send their smiles before them to Achilles,
To come as humbly as they use to creep
To holy altars.
Achilles What, am I poor of late?
'Tis certain, greatness once fall'n out with fortune
Must fall out with men too. What the declined is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings but to the summer,
And not a man for being simply man
Hath any honour, but honoured for those honours
That are without him -as place, riches, and favour:
Prizes of accident as oft as merit,
Which, when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that leaned on them, as slippery too,
Doth one pluck down another, and together
Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:
Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy
At ample point all that I did possess,
Save these men's looks; who do methinks find out
Something not worth in me such rich beholding
As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;
I'll interrupt his reading. How now, Ulysses?
Ulysses Now, great Thetis' son.
Achilles What are you reading?
Ulysses A strange fellow here
Writes me that man -how dearly ever parted,
How much in having, or without or in -
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.
Achilles This is not strange, Ulysses.
The beauty that is borne here in the face
The bearer knows not, but commends itself
To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself,
That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself,
Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed
Salutes each other with each other's form.
For speculation turns not to itself
Till it hath travelled, and is mirrored there
Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.
Ulysses I do not strain at the position
- It is familiar -but at the author's drift,
Who in his circumstance expressly proves
That no man is the lord of anything
- Though in and of him there be much consisting -
Till he communicate his parts to others;
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
Till he behold them formed in th' applause
Where they're extended; who, like an arch, reverb'rate
The voice again, or, like a gate of steel
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this,
And apprehended here immediately
The unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there!
A very horse, that has he knows not what!
Nature, what things there are,
Most abject in regard and dear in use!
What things again most dear in the esteem
And poor in worth! Now shall we see tomorrow,
An act that very chance doth throw upon him,
Ajax renowned. O heavens, what some men do
While some men leave to do!
How some men creep in skittish Fortune's hall
Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another's pride
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords! Why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,
As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast,
And great Troy shrinking.
Achilles I do believe it, for they passed by me
As misers do by beggars -neither gave to me
Good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?
Ulysses Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes.
Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mock'ry. Take the instant way,
For honour travels in a strait so narrow
Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path,
For emulation hath a thousand sons
That one by one pursue; if you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an entered tide they all rush by
And leave you hindmost;
Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,
Lie there for pavement for the abject rear,
O'errun and trampled on. Then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours;
For Time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand,
And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer: the welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all with one consent praise new-born gauds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past,
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o'erdusted.
The present eye praises the present object:
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax,
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might, and yet it may again,
If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive,
And case thy reputation in thy tent,
Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of late
Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves,
And drave great Mars to faction.
Achilles Of this my privacy
I have strong reasons.
Ulysses But 'gainst your privacy
The reasons are more potent and heroical.
'Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love
With one of Priam's daughters.
Achilles Ha, known?
Ulysses Is that a wonder?
The providence that's in a watchful state
Knows almost every grain of Pluto's gold,
Finds bottom in th' uncomprehensive deeps,
Keeps place with thought, and almost like the gods
Do thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
There is a mystery, with whom relation
Durst never meddle, in the soul of state,
Which hath an operation more divine
Than breath or pen can give expressure to.
All the commerce that you have had with Troy
As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;
And better would it fit Achilles much
To throw down Hector than Polyxena.
But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,
When fame shall in our islands sound her trump
And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing
"Great Hector's sister did Achilles win,
But our great Ajax bravely beat down him."
Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak;
The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break.
[Exit.
Patroclus To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you.
A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loathed than an effeminate man
In time of action: I stand condemned for this.
They think my little stomach to the war
And your great love to me restrains you thus.
Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid
Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
And like a dew-drop from the lion's mane
Be shook to air.
Achilles Shall Ajax fight with Hector?
Patroclus Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.
Achilles I see my reputation is at stake;
My fame is shrewdly gored.
Patroclus O then beware:
Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves.
Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Even then when we sit idly in the sun.
Achilles Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus.
I'll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him
T'invite the Trojan lords after the combat
To see us here unarmed. I have a woman's longing,
An appetite that I am sick withal,
To see great Hector in his weeds of peace,
Enter THERSITES.
To talk with him, and to behold his visage
Even to my full of view. -A labour saved!
Thersites A wonder!
Achilles What?
Thersites Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself.
Achilles How so?
Thersites He must fight singly tomorrow with Hector, and is so
prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he raves in saying nothing.
Achilles How can that be?
Thersites Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock -a stride and a stand;
ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down
her reckoning; bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say "There
were wit in this head, and 'twould out" -and so there is; but it lies as
coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The
man's undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i'th' combat, he'll
break't himself in vainglory. He knows not me: I said "Good morrow, Ajax" and
he replies "Thanks, Agamemnon". What think you of this man that takes me for
the general? He's grown a very land-fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of
opinion! A man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin.
Achilles Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.
Thersites Who, I? Why, he'll answer nobody; he professes not answering:
speaking is for beggars, he wears his tongue in's arms. I will put on his
presence -let Patroclus make his demands to me, you shall see the pageant of
Ajax.
Achilles To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to
invite the most valorous Hector to come unarmed to my tent, and to procure
safe-conduct for his person of the magnanimous and most illustrious six or
seven times honoured captain-general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon, et
cetera. Do this.
Patroclus Jove bless great Ajax!
Thersites Hum.
Patroclus I come from the worthy Achilles -
Thersites Ha?
Patroclus - who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent -
Thersites Hum.
Patroclus - and to procure safe-conduct from Agamemnon.
Thersites Agamemnon?
Patroclus Ay, my lord.
Thersites Ha!
Patroclus What say you to't?
Thersites God-buy-you, with all my heart.
Patroclus Your answer, sir.
Thersites If tomorrow be a fair day, by eleven a'clock it will go one way
or other; howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me.
Patroclus Your answer, sir.
Thersites Fare you well, with all my heart.
Achilles Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?
Thersites No, but he's out a'tune thus. What music will be in him when
Hector has knocked out his brains, I know not; but I am sure none, unless the
fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.
Achilles Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.
Thersites Let me carry another to his horse, for that's the more capable
creature.
Achilles My mind is troubled like a fountain stirred,
And I myself see not the bottom of it.
[Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS.
Thersites Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might
water an ass at it! I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant
ignorance.
[Exit.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
ACT 4.
Scene 1. Troy. A Street.
Enter at one door AENEAS with a TORCH, at another PARIS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR,
DIOMEDES the Grecian, and OTHERS with torches.
Paris See, ho! Who is that there?
Deiphobus It is the Lord Aeneas.
Aeneas Is the prince there in person?
Had I so good occasion to lie long
As you, Prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business
Should rob my bed-mate of my company.
Diomedes That's my mind too. Good morrow, Lord Aeneas.
Paris A valiant Greek, Aeneas; take his hand.
Witness the process of your speech within:
You told how Diomed in a whole week by days
Did haunt you in the field.
Aeneas Health to you, valiant sir,
During all question of the gentle truce.
But when I meet you armed, as black defiance
As heart can think or courage execute.
Diomedes The one and other Diomed embraces.
Our bloods are how in calm; and so long -health!
But when contention and occasion meet,
By Jove, I'll play the hunter for thy life
With all my force, pursuit, and policy.
Aeneas And thou shalt hunt a lion that will fly
With his face backward. In humane gentleness,
Welcome to Troy! Now by Anchises' life,
Welcome indeed! By Venus' hand I swear
No man alive can love in such a sort
The thing he means to kill more excellently.
Diomedes We sympathize. Jove, let Aeneas live
- If to my sword his fate be not the glory -
A thousand complete courses of the sun!
But in mine emulous honour let him die
With every joint a wound, and that tomorrow!
Aeneas We know each other well.
Diomedes We do, and long to know each other worse.
Paris This is the most despitefull'st gentle greeting,
The noblest hateful love, that e'er I heard of.
[To AENEAS.] What business, lord, so early?
Aeneas I was sent for to the King; but why, I know not.
Paris His purpose meets you: it was to bring this Greek
To Calchas' house, and there to render him,
For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid.
Let's have your company; or, if you please,
Haste there before us.
[Aside to AENEAS.] I constantly do think
- Or rather call my thought a certain knowledge -
My brother Troilus lodges there tonight.
Rouse him, and give him note of our approach,
With the whole quality whereof. I fear
We shall be much unwelcome.
Aeneas [Aside to PARIS.] That I assure you.
Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece,
Than Cressid borne from Troy.
Paris [Aside to AENEAS.] There is no help:
The bitter disposition of the time
Will have it so. [Aloud.] On, lord, we'll follow you.
Aeneas Good morrow, all.
[Exit.
Paris And tell me, noble Diomed, faith, tell me true,
Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship,
Who in your thoughts merits fair Helen most?
Myself, or Menelaus?
Diomedes Both alike.
He merits well to have her that doth seek her,
Not making any scruple of her soilure,
With such a hell of pain and world of charge;
And you as well to keep her that defend her,
Not palating the taste of her dishonour,
With such a costly loss of wealth and friends.
He, like a puling cuckold, would drink up
The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece;
You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins
Are pleased to breed out your inheritors.
Both merits poised, each weighs nor less nor more,
But he as he, which heavier for a whore?
Paris You are too bitter to your countrywoman.
Diomedes She's bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris;
For every false drop in her bawdy veins
A Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scruple
Of her contaminated carrion weight
A Trojan hath been slain. Since she could speak,
She hath not given so many good words breath
As for her Greeks and Trojans suffered death.
Paris Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do:
Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy;
But we in silence hold this virtue well:
We'll not commend what we intend to sell.
Here lies our way.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 2. Troy. A Court before Pandarus' House.
Enter TROILUS and CRESSIDA.
Troilus Dear, trouble not yourself; the morn is cold.
Cressida Then, sweet my lord, I'll call mine uncle down;
He shall unbolt the gates.
Troilus Trouble him not.
To bed, to bed! Sleep kill those pretty eyes,
And give as soft attachment to thy senses
As infants empty of all thought.
Cressida Good morrow, then.
Troilus I prithee now to bed.
Cressida Are you aweary of me?
Troilus O Cressida! But that the busy day
Waked by the lark hath roused the ribald crows,
And dreaming night will hide our joys no longer,
I would not from thee.
Cressida Night hath been too brief.
Troilus Beshrew the witch! With venomous wights she stays
As hideously as hell, but flies the grasps of love
With wings more momentary-swift than thought.
You will catch cold, and curse me.
Cressida Prithee tarry: -you men will never tarry.
O foolish Cressid, I might have still held off,
And then you would have tarried. Hark, there's one up!
Pandarus [Within.] What's all the doors open here?
Troilus It is your uncle.
Enter PANDARUS.
Cressida A pestilence on him! Now will he be mocking:
I shall have such a life.
Pandarus How now, how now, how go maidenheads? Here, you maid, where's my
cousin Cressid?
Cressida Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle!
You bring me to do -and then you flout me too!
Pandarus To do what? To do what? Let her say what. What have I brought you
to do?
Cressida Come, come, beshrew your heart! You'll ne'er be good,
Nor suffer others.
Pandarus Ha, ha! Alas, poor wretch! Ah, poor capocchia, has't not slept
tonight? Would he not -a naughty man -let it sleep? A bugbear take him!
Cressida Did not I tell you? Would he were knocked i'th' head!
[One knocks.
Who's that at door? Good uncle, go and see.
My lord, come you again into my chamber: -
You smile and mock me, as if I meant naughtily.
Troilus Ha, ha!
Cressida Come, you are deceived, I think of no such thing.
[Knock.
How earnestly they knock! Pray you come in.
I would not for half Troy have you seen here.
[Exeunt TROILUS and CRESSIDA.
Pandarus Who's there? What's the matter? Will you beat down the door? How
now! What's the matter?
Enter AENEAS.
Aeneas Good morrow, lord, good morrow.
Pandarus Who's there? My Lord Aeneas? By my troth,
I knew you not. What news with you so early?
Aeneas Is not Prince Troilus here?
Pandarus Here? What should he do here?
Aeneas Come, he is here, my lord; do not deny him.
It doth import him much to speak with me.
Pandarus Is he here, say you? 'Tis more than I know, I'll be sworn. For my
own part, I came in late. What should he do here?
Aeneas Whoa, nay then! Come, come, you'll do him wrong ere you're ware:
you'll be so true to him to be false to him. Do not you know of him, but yet
go fetch him hither; go.
[Exit PANDARUS.
Re-enter TROILUS with PANDARUS.
Troilus How now, what's the matter?
Aeneas My lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you,
My matter is so rash. There is at hand
Paris your brother, and Deiphobus,
The Grecian Diomed, and our Antenor
Delivered to us; and for him forthwith,
Ere the first sacrifice, within this hour,
We must give up to Diomedes' hand
The Lady Cressida.
Troilus Is it so concluded?
Aeneas By Priam and the general state of Troy.
They are at hand, and ready to effect it.
Troilus How my achievements mock me!
I will go meet them; and, my Lord Aeneas,
We met by chance: you did not find me here.
Aeneas Good, good, my lord; the secrets of nature
Have not more gift in taciturnity.
[Exeunt TROILUS and AENEAS.
Re-enter CRESSIDA.
Pandarus Is't possible? No sooner got but lost? The devil take Antenor! The
young prince will go mad. A plague upon Antenor! I would they had broke's neck!
Cressida How now, what's the matter? Who was here?
Pandarus Ah, ah!
Cressida Why sigh you so profoundly? Where's my lord? Gone? Tell me, sweet
uncle, what's the matter?
Pandarus Would I were as deep under the earth as I am above.
Cressida O the gods! What's the matter?
Pandarus Prithee get thee in. Would thou hadst ne'er been born! I knew thou
wouldst be his death. O poor gentleman! A plague upon Antenor!
Cressida Good uncle, I beseech you, on my knees I beseech you what's the
matter?
Pandarus Thou must be gone, wench, thou must be gone: thou art changed for
Antenor. Thou must to thy father, and be gone from Troilus. 'Twill be his
death, 'twill be his bane -he cannot bear it.
Cressida O you immortal gods! I will not go.
Pandarus Thou must.
Cressida I will not, uncle. I have forgot my father;
I know no touch of consanguinity,
No kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me
As the sweet Troilus. O you gods divine!
Make Cressid's name the very crown of falsehood
If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,
Do to this body what extremity you can;
But the strong base and building of my love
Is as the very centre of the earth,
Drawing all things to it. I'll go in and weep -
Pandarus Do, do.
Cressida Tear my bright hair, and scratch my praised cheeks,
Crack my clear voice with sobs, and break my heart
With sounding "Troilus". I will not go from Troy.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 3. Troy. Before Pandarus' House.
Enter PARIS, TROILUS, AENEAS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR, and DIOMEDES.
Paris It is great morning, and the hour prefixed
Of her delivery to this valiant Greek
Comes fast upon. Good my brother Troilus,
Tell you the lady what she is to do,
And haste her to the purpose.
Troilus Walk into her house:
I'll bring her to the Grecian presently;
And to his hand when I deliver her,
Think it an altar, and thy brother Troilus
A priest, there off'ring to it his own heart.
[Exit.
Paris I know what 'tis to love,
And would, as I shall pity, I could help.
Please you walk in, my lords?
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 4. Troy. A Room in Pandarus' House.
Enter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA.
Pandarus Be moderate, be moderate.
Cressida Why tell you me of moderation?
The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste,
And violenteth in a sense as strong
As that which causeth it. How can I moderate it?
If I could temporize with my affection,
Or brew it to a weak and colder palate,
The like allayment could I give my grief.
My love admits no qualifying dross;
No more my grief, in such a precious loss.
Enter TROILUS.
Pandarus Here, here, here he comes. Ah, sweet ducks!
Cressida [Embracing TROILUS.] O Troilus, Troilus!
Pandarus What a pair of spectacles is here! Let me embrace, too. "O heart",
as the goodly saying is,
"O heart, heavy heart,
Why sigh'st thou without breaking?"
where he answers again
"Because thou canst not ease thy smart
By friendship nor by speaking."
There was never a truer rhyme. Let us cast away nothing, for we may live
to have need of such a verse: -we see it, we see it. How now, lambs?
Troilus Cressid, I love thee in so strained a purity
That the blessed gods, as angry with my fancy,
More bright in zeal than the devotion which
Cold lips blow to their deities, take thee from me.
Cressida Have the gods envy?
Pandarus Ay, ay, ay, ay, 'tis too plain a case.
Cressida And is it true that I must go from Troy?
Troilus A hateful truth.
Cressida What, and from Troilus too?
Troilus From Troy and Troilus.
Cressida Is't possible?
Troilus And suddenly; where injury of chance
Puts back leave-taking, jostles roughly by
All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips
Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents
Our locked embrasures, strangles our dear vows
Even in the birth of our own labouring breath.
We two, that with so many thousand sighs
Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves
With the rude brevity and discharge of one.
Injurious time now with a robber's haste
Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how;
As many farewells as be stars in heaven,
With distinct breath and consigned kisses to them,
He fumbles up into a loose adieu,
And scants us with a single famished kiss,
Distasted with the salt of broken tears.
Aeneas [Within.] My lord, is the lady ready?
Troilus Hark, you are called. Some say the Genius so
Cries "Come!" to him that instantly must die.
Bid them have patience: she shall come anon.
Pandarus Where are my tears? -rain, to lay this wind, or my heart will be
blown up by the root.
[Exit.
Cressida I must then to the Grecians?
Troilus No remedy.
Cressida A woeful Cressid 'mongst the merry Greeks!
When shall we see again?
Troilus Hear me, my love: be thou but true of heart -
Cressida I, true? How now, what wicked deem is this?
Troilus Nay, we must use expostulation kindly,
For it is parting from us.
I speak not "be thou true" as fearing thee,
For I will throw my glove to death himself
That there's no maculation in thy heart;
But "be thou true" say I, to fashion in
My sequent protestation: be thou true,
And I will see thee.
Cressida O you shall be exposed, my lord, to dangers
As infinite as imminent. But I'll be true.
Troilus And I'll grow friend with danger. Wear this sleeve.
Cressida And you this glove. When shall I see you?
Troilus I will corrupt the Grecian sentinels,
To give thee nightly visitation.
But yet be true.
Cressida O heavens, "be true" again?
Troilus Hear why I speak it, love:
The Grecian youths are full of quality,
Their loving well composed with gift of nature flowing,
And swelling o'er with arts and exercise.
How novelty may move, and parts with person,
Alas, a kind of godly jealousy,
- Which I beseech you call a virtuous sin -
Makes me afraid.
Cressida O heavens, you love me not!
Troilus Die I a villain then!
In this I do not call your faith in question
So mainly as my merit: I cannot sing,
Nor heel the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk,
Nor play at subtle games -fair virtues all,
To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant;
But I can tell that in each grace of these
There lurks a still and dumb-discoursive devil
That tempts most cunningly. But be not tempted.
Cressida Do you think I will?
Troilus No.
But something may be done that we will not;
And sometimes we are devils to ourselves,
When we will tempt the frailty of our powers,
Presuming on their changeful potency.
Aeneas [Within.] Nay, good my lord!
Troilus Come, kiss, and let us part.
Paris [Within.] Brother Troilus!
Troilus Good brother, come you hither,
And bring Aeneas and the Grecian with you.
Cressida My lord, will you be true?
Troilus Who, I? Alas, it is my vice, my fault.
Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion,
I with great truth catch mere simplicity;
Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,
With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.
Fear not my truth; the moral of my wit
Is "Plain and true" -there's all the reach of it.
Enter AENEAS, PARIS, ANTENOR, DEIPHOBUS, and DIOMEDES.
Welcome, Sir Diomed; here is the lady
Which for Antenor we deliver you.
At the port, lord, I'll give her to thy hand,
And by the way possess thee what she is.
Entreat her fair, and by my soul, fair Greek,
If e'er thou stand at mercy of my sword,
Name Cressid, and thy life shall be as safe
As Priam is in Ilion.
Diomedes Fair Lady Cressid,
So please you, save the thanks this prince expects.
The lustre in your eye, heaven in your cheek,
Pleads your fair usage; and to Diomed
You shall be mistress, and command him wholly.
Troilus Grecian, thou dost not use me courteously,
To shame the zeal of my petition to thee
In praising her. I tell thee, lord of Greece,
She is as far high-soaring o'er thy praises
As thou unworthy to be called her servant.
I charge thee use her well, even for my charge;
For, by the dreadful Pluto, if thou dost not,
Though the great bulk Achilles be thy guard,
I'll cut thy throat.
Diomedes O be not moved, Prince Troilus.
Let me be privileged by my place and message
To be a speaker free. When I am hence
I'll answer to my lust; and know, my lord,
I'll nothing do on charge. To her own worth
She shall be prized: -but that you say "Be't so",
I'll speak it in my spirit and honour "No".
Troilus Come, to the port. I'll tell thee, Diomed,
This brave shall oft make thee to hide thy head.
Lady, give me your hand, and, as we walk,
To our own selves bend we our needful talk.
[Exeunt TROILUS, CRESSIDA and DIOMEDES.
[Sound trumpet.
Paris Hark, Hector's trumpet.
Aeneas How have we spent this morning!
The prince must think me tardy and remiss,
That swore to ride before him in the field.
Paris 'Tis Troilus' fault. Come, come, to field with him.
Deiphobus Let us make ready straight.
Aeneas Yea, with a bridegroom's fresh alacrity
Let us address to tend on Hector's heels.
The glory of our Troy doth this day lie
On his fair worth and single chivalry.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 5. The Grecian Camp. Lists set out.
Enter AJAX armed, ACHILLES, PATROCLUS, AGAMEMNON, MENELAUS, ULYSSES, NESTOR,
CALCHAS, TRUMPETER, and OTHERS.
Agamemnon Here art thou in appointment fresh and fair,
Anticipating time with starting courage.
Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy,
Thou dreadful Ajax, that the appalled air
May pierce the head of the great combatant,
And hale him hither.
Ajax Thou, trumpet, there's my purse.
Now crack thy lungs and split thy brazen pipe;
Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek
Outswell the colic of puffed Aquilon.
Come, stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout blood:
Thou blowest for Hector.
[Sound trumpet.
Ulysses No trumpet answers.
Achilles 'Tis but early days.
Agamemnon Is not yond Diomed with Calchas' daughter?
Ulysses 'Tis he, I ken the manner of his gait;
He rises on the toe: that spirit of his
In aspiration lifts him from the earth.
Enter DIOMEDES and CRESSIDA.
Agamemnon Is this the Lady Cressid?
Diomedes Even she.
Agamemnon Most dearly welcome to the Greeks, sweet lady.
[Kisses her.
Nestor Our general doth salute you with a kiss.
Ulysses Yet is the kindness but particular;
'Twere better she were kissed in general.
Nestor And very courtly counsel. I'll begin.
[Kisses her.
So much for Nestor.
Achilles I'll take that winter from your lips, fair lady.
[Kisses her.
Achilles bids you welcome.
Menelaus I had good argument for kissing once.
Patroclus But that's no argument for kissing now;
For thus popped Paris in his hardiment,
And parted thus you and your argument.
[Kisses her.
Ulysses [Aside.] O deadly gall, and theme of all our scorns!
For which we lose our heads to gild his horns.
Patroclus The first was Menelaus' kiss; this, mine.
[Kisses her again.
Patroclus kisses you.
Menelaus O, this is trim.
Patroclus Paris and I kiss evermore for him.
Menelaus I'll have my kiss, sir. Lady, by your leave.
Cressida In kissing, do you render or receive?
Menelaus Both take and give.
Cressida I'll make my match to live,
The kiss you take is better than you give:
Therefore no kiss.
Menelaus I'll give you boot, I'll give you three for one.
Cressida You are an odd man; give even or give none.
Menelaus An odd man, lady? Every man is odd.
Cressida No, Paris is not; for you know 'tis true
That you are odd, and he is even with you.
Menelaus You fillip me a'th' head.
Cressida No, I'll be sworn.
Ulysses It were no match, your nail against his horn.
May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?
Cressida You may.
Ulysses I do desire it.
Cressida Why, beg then.
Ulysses Why then, for Venus' sake, give me a kiss
When Helen is a maid again, and his.
Cressida I am your debtor; claim it when 'tis due.
Ulysses Never's my day, and then a kiss of you.
Diomedes Lady, a word. I'll bring you to your father.
[Exeunt DIOMEDES and CRESSIDA.
Nestor A woman of quick sense.
Ulysses Fie, fie upon her!
There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.
O these encounterers so glib of tongue,
That give accosting welcome ere it comes,
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts
To every tickling reader: -set them down
For sluttish spoils of opportunity
And daughters of the game.
[Flourish.
All The Trojan's trumpet.
Agamemnon Yonder comes the troop.
Enter all of Troy: HECTOR, armed, PARIS, AENEAS, TROILUS, HELENUS, and
ATTENDANTS.
Aeneas Hail, all the state of Greece! What shall be done
To him that victory commands? Or do you purpose
A victor shall be known? Will you the knights
Shall to the edge of all extremity
Pursue each other; or shall they be divided
By any voice or order of the field?
Hector bade ask.
Agamemnon Which way would Hector have it?
Aeneas He cares not; he'll obey conditions.
Agamemnon 'Tis done like Hector.
Achilles But securely done,
A little proudly, and great deal disprizing
The knight opposed.
Aeneas If not Achilles, sir,
What is your name?
Achilles If not Achilles, nothing.
Aeneas Therefore Achilles; but whate'er, know this:
In the extremity of great and little,
Valour and pride excel themselves in Hector;
The one almost as infinite as all,
The other blank as nothing. Weigh him well,
And that which looks like pride is courtesy.
This Ajax is half made of Hector's blood;
In love whereof, half Hector stays at home.
Half heart, half hand, half Hector comes to seek
This blended knight, half Trojan and half Greek.
Achilles A maiden battle, then? O, I perceive you.
Re-enter DIOMEDES.
Agamemnon Here is Sir Diomed. Go, gentle knight,
Stand by our Ajax. As you and Lord Aeneas
Consent upon the order of their fight,
So be it: either to the uttermost,
Or else a breath. The combatants being kin
Half stints their strife before their strokes begin.
[AJAX and HECTOR prepare to fight.
Ulysses They are opposed already.
Agamemnon What Trojan is that same that looks so heavy?
Ulysses The youngest son of Priam, a true knight;
Not yet mature, yet matchless; firm of word,
Speaking in deeds, and deedless in his tongue;
Not soon provoked, nor, being provoked, soon calmed;
His heart and hand both open and both free,
For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows,
Yet gives he not till judgement guide his bounty,
Nor dignifies an impare thought with breath.
Manly as Hector, but more dangerous,
For Hector in his blaze of wrath subscribes
To tender objects, but he in heat of action
Is more vindicative than jealous love.
They call him Troilus, and on him erect
A second hope as fairly built as Hector.
Thus says Aeneas, one that knows the youth
Even to his inches, and with private soul
Did in great Ilion thus translate him to me.
[Alarum. AJAX and HECTOR fight.
Agamemnon They are in action.
Nestor Now, Ajax, hold thine own!
Troilus Hector, thou sleep'st; awake thee!
Agamemnon His blows are well disposed. There, Ajax!
[Trumpets cease.
Diomedes You must no more.
Aeneas Princes, enough, so please you.
Ajax I am not warm yet; let us fight again.
Diomedes As Hector pleases.
Hector Why, then will I no more.
Thou art, great lord, my father's sister's son,
A cousin-german to great Priam's seed:
The obligation of our blood forbids
A gory emulation 'twixt us twain.
Were thy commixtion Greek and Trojan so
That thou couldst say "This hand is Grecian all,
And this is Trojan; the sinews of this leg
All Greek, and this all Troy; my mother's blood
Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister
Bounds in my father's" -by Jove multipotent,
Thou shouldst not bear from me a Greekish member
Wherein my sword had not impressure made
Of our rank feud. But the just gods gainsay
That any drop thou borrowed'st from thy mother,
My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword
Be drained. Let me embrace thee, Ajax.
By him that thunders, thou hast lusty arms;
Hector would have them fall upon him thus.
Cousin, all honour to thee!
Ajax I thank thee, Hector.
Thou art too gentle and too free a man.
I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence
A great addition earned in thy death.
Hector Not Neoptolemus so mirable,
On whose bright crest fame with her loud'st Oyes
Cries "This is he", could promise to himself
A thought of added honour torn from Hector.
Aeneas There is expectance here from both the sides
What further you will do.
Hector We'll answer it:
The issue is embracement. Ajax, farewell.
Ajax If I might in entreaties find success,
As seld I have the chance, I would desire
My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.
Diomedes 'Tis Agamemnon's wish, and great Achilles
Doth long to see unarmed the valiant Hector.
Hector Aeneas, call my brother Troilus to me,
And signify this loving interview
To the expecters of our Trojan part;
Desire them home. Give me thy hand, my cousin;
I will go eat with thee, and see your knights.
[AGAMEMNON and the REST come forward.
Ajax Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.
Hector The worthiest of them tell me name by name;
But for Achilles, mine own searching eyes
Shall find him by his large and portly size.
Agamemnon Worthy of arms, as welcome as to one
That would be rid of such an enemy.
But that's no welcome. Understand more clear:
What's past and what's to come is strewed with husks
And formless ruin of oblivion;
But in this extant moment, faith and troth,
Strained purely from all hollow bias-drawing,
Bids thee with most divine integrity
From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.
Hector I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon.
Agamemnon [To TROILUS.] My well-famed lord of Troy, no less to you.
Menelaus Let me confirm my princely brother's greeting:
You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.
Hector Who must we answer?
Aeneas The noble Menelaus.
Hector O you, my lord? -By Mars his gauntlet, thanks.
Mock not that I affect th' untraded oath;
Your quondam wife swears still by Venus' glove.
She's well, but bade me not commend her to you.
Menelaus Name her not now, sir; she's a deadly theme.
Hector O, pardon; I offend.
Nestor I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft,
Labouring for destiny, make cruel way
Through ranks of Greekish youth, and I have seen thee
As hot as Perseus spur thy Phrygian steed,
Despising many forfeits and subduements,
When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i'th' air,
Not letting it decline on the declined,
That I have said to some my standers-by
"Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life";
And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath,
When that a ring of Greeks have hemmed thee in,
Like an Olympian wrestling. This have I seen,
But this thy countenance, still locked in steel,
I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire,
And once fought with him: he was a soldier good,
But, by great Mars the captain of us all,
Never like thee. Let an old man embrace thee;
And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.
Aeneas 'Tis the old Nestor.
Hector Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle,
That hast so long walked hand in hand with time.
Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee.
Nestor I would my arms could match thee in contention,
As they contend with thee in courtesy.
Hector I would they could.
Nestor Ha!
By this white beard, I'd fight with thee tomorrow.
Well, welcome, welcome. I have seen the time.
Ulysses I wonder now how yonder city stands,
When we have here her base and pillar by us?
Hector I know your favour, Lord Ulysses, well.
Ah, sir, there's many a Greek and Trojan dead
Since first I saw yourself and Diomed
In Ilion on your Greekish embassy.
Ulysses Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue.
My prophecy is but half his journey yet;
For yonder walls that pertly front your town,
Yond towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,
Must kiss their own feet.
Hector I must not believe you.
There they stand yet; and modestly I think
The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost
A drop of Grecian blood. The end crowns all,
And that old common arbitrator, Time,
Will one day end it.
Ulysses So to him we leave it.
Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome.
After the general, I beseech you next
To feast with me and see me at my tent.
Achilles I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses -thou.
Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee;
I have with exact view perused thee, Hector,
And quoted joint by joint.
Hector Is this Achilles?
Achilles I am Achilles.
Hector Stand fair, I pray thee; let me look on thee.
Achilles Behold thy fill.
Hector Nay, I have done already.
Achilles Thou art too brief. I will the second time,
As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.
Hector O, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er;
But there's more in me than thou understand'st.
Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?
Achilles Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his body
Shall I destroy him? Whether there, or there, or there,
That I may give the local wound a name,
And make distinct the very breach whereout
Hector's great spirit flew? Answer me, heavens.
Hector It would discredit the blessed gods, proud man,
To answer such a question. Stand again.
Think'st thou to catch my life so pleasantly
As to prenominate in nice conjecture
Where thou wilt hit me dead?
Achilles I tell thee, yea.
Hector Wert thou the oracle to tell me so,
I'd not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well,
For I'll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there,
But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm,
I'll kill thee everywhere, yea, o'er and o'er.
You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag:
His insolence draws folly from my lips;
But I'll endeavour deeds to match these words,
Or may I never -
Ajax Do not chafe thee, cousin;
And you, Achilles, let these threats alone,
Till accident or purpose bring you to't.
You may have every day enough of Hector,
If you have stomach. The general state, I fear,
Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.
Hector I pray you let us see you in the field;
We have had pelting wars since you refused
The Grecians' cause.
Achilles Dost thou entreat me, Hector?
Tomorrow do I meet thee, fell as death;
Tonight, all friends.
Hector Thy hand upon that match.
Agamemnon First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent;
There in the full convive you; afterwards,
As Hector's leisure and your bounties shall
Concur together, severally entreat him.
Beat loud the taborins, let the trumpets blow,
That this great soldier may his welcome know.
[Sound drums and trumpets.
[Exeunt all but TROILUS and ULYSSES.
Troilus My Lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,
In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?
Ulysses At Menelaus' tent, most princely Troilus.
There Diomed doth feast with him tonight,
Who neither looks on heaven nor on earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.
Troilus Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much,
After we part from Agamemnon's tent,
To bring me thither?
Ulysses You shall command me, sir.
As gentle tell me, of what honour was
This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there
That wails her absence?
Troilus O sir, to such as boasting show their scars
A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord?
She was beloved, she loved; she is, and doth;
But still sweet love is food for fortune's tooth.
[Exeunt.
+++ +++ +++ +++ +++ +++
ACT 5.
Scene 1. The Grecian Camp. Before Achilles' Tent.
Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS.
Achilles I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine tonight,
Which with my scimitar I'll cool tomorrow.
Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.
Enter THERSITES.
Patroclus Here comes Thersites.
Achilles How now, thou core of envy!
Thou crusty botch of nature, what's the news?
Thersites Why, thou picture of what thou seem'st, and idol of
idiot-worshippers, here's a letter for thee.
Achilles From whence, fragment?
Thersites Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.
Patroclus Who keeps the tent now?
Thersites The surgeon's box or the patient's wound.
Patroclus Well said, adversity! And what need these tricks?
Thersites Prithee be silent, boy, I profit not by thy talk; thou art
thought to be Achilles' male varlet.
Patroclus Male varlet, you rogue? What's that?
Thersites Why, his masculine whore. Now the rotten diseases of the south,
guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o'gravel i'th' back, lethargies, cold
palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, whissing lungs, bladders full of
impostume, sciaticas, limekilns i'th' palm, incurable bone-ache, and the
rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous
discoveries!
Patroclus Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what mean'st thou to curse
thus?
Thersites Do I curse thee?
Patroclus Why, no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson indistinguishable cur.
Thersites No? Why art thou then exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of
sleave silk, thou green sarsenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a
prodigal's purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered with such
water-flies, diminutives of nature!
Patroclus Out, gall!
Thersites Finch egg!
Achilles My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
From my great purpose in tomorrow's battle.
Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,
A token from her daughter, my fair love,
Both taxing me and gaging me to keep
An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it.
Fall, Greeks; fail, fame; honour, or go or stay -
My major vow lies here, this I'll obey.
Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent;
This night in banqueting must all be spent.
Away, Patroclus!
[Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS.
Thersites With too much blood and too little brain these two may run mad;
but if with too much brain and too little blood they do, I'll be a curer of
madmen. Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails,
but he has not so much brain as earwax; and the goodly transformation of
Jupiter there, his brother, the bull, the primitive statue and oblique
memorial of cuckolds, a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain hanging at his
brother's leg -to what form but that he is should wit larded with malice and
malice forced with wit turn him to? To an ass were nothing: he is both ass and
ox; to an ox were nothing: he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat,
a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I
would not care; but to be Menelaus I would conspire against destiny. Ask me
not what I would be if I were not Thersites, for I care not to be the louse of
a lazar so I were not Menelaus. Hoyday! Spirits and fires!
Enter HECTOR, AJAX, AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, TROILUS, MENELAUS, DIOMEDES,
with lights.
Agamemnon We go wrong, we go wrong.
Ajax No, yonder 'tis;
There, where we see the lights.
Hector I trouble you.
Ajax No, not a whit.
Enter ACHILLES.
Ulysses Here comes himself to guide you.
Achilles Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, princes all.
Agamemnon So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good night.
Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.
Hector Thanks, and good night to the Greeks' general.
Menelaus Good night, my lord.
Hector Good night, sweet Lord Menelaus.
Thersites [Aside.] Sweet draught! `Sweet' quoth a'? -sweet sink, sweet sewer.
Achilles Good night and welcome both at once, to those
That go or tarry.
Agamemnon Good night.
[Exeunt AGAMEMNON and MENELAUS.
Achilles Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed,
Keep Hector company an hour or two.
Diomedes I cannot, lord; I have important business,
The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector.
Hector Give me your hand.
Ulysses [Aside to TROILUS.]
Follow his torch; he goes to Calchas' tent;
I'll keep you company.
Troilus [Aside to ULYSSES.] Sweet sir, you honour me.
Hector And so good night.
[Exit DIOMEDES; followed by ULYSSES and TROILUS.
Achilles Come, come, enter my tent.
[Exeunt all but THERSITES.
Thersites That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave. I
will no more trust him when he leers than I will a serpent when he hisses. He
will spend his mouth and promise, like Brabbler the hound; but when he
performs, astronomers foretell it that it is prodigious, there will come some
change. The sun borrows of the moon when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather
leave to see Hector than not to dog him. They say he keeps a Trojan drab, and
uses the traitor Calchas his tent. I'll after. -Nothing but lechery! All
incontinent varlets!
[Exit.
+ + + + + +
Scene 2. The Grecian Camp. Before Calchas' Tent.
Enter DIOMEDES.
Diomedes What, are you up here, ho? Speak!
Calchas [Within.] Who calls?
Diomedes Diomed. Calchas, I think? Where's your daughter?
Calchas [Within.] She comes to you.
Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, after them THERSITES.
Ulysses [To TROILUS.] Stand where the torch may not discover us.
[TROILUS and ULYSSES stand apart.
Enter CRESSIDA from the tent.
Troilus Cressid comes forth to him.
Diomedes How now, my charge?
Cressida Now, my sweet guardian, hark, a word with you.
[Whispers.
Troilus Yea, so familiar?
Ulysses She will sing any man at first sight.
Thersites And any man may sing her if he can take her clef -she's noted.
Diomedes Will you remember?
Cressida Remember? Yes.
Diomedes Nay, but do then;
And let your mind be coupled with your words.
Troilus What should she remember?
Ulysses List.
Cressida Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.
Thersites Roguery!
Diomedes Nay then -
Cressida I'll tell you what -
Diomedes Fo, fo, come tell a pin; you are forsworn.
Cressida In faith I cannot. What would you have me do?
Thersites A juggling trick -to be secretly open.
Diomedes What did you swear you would bestow on me?
Cressida I prithee do not hold me to mine oath;
Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.
Diomedes Good night.
Troilus Hold, patience!
Ulysses How now, Trojan?
Cressida Diomed -
Diomedes No, no, good night; I'll be your fool no more.
Troilus Thy better must.
Cressida Hark, one word in your ear.
Troilus O plague and madness!
Ulysses You are moved, prince. Let us depart, I pray you,
Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself
To wrathful terms: this place is dangerous;
The time right deadly. I beseech you, go.
Troilus Behold, I pray you.
Ulysses Nay, good my lord, go off;
You flow to great distraction. Come, my lord.
Troilus I pray thee stay.
Ulysses You have not patience; come.
Troilus I pray you stay. By hell and all hell's torments,
I will not speak a word!
Diomedes And so good night.
Cressida Nay, but you part in anger.
Troilus Doth that grieve thee?
O withered truth!
Ulysses Why, how now, lord?
Troilus By Jove,
I will be patient.
Cressida Guardian! Why, Greek!
Diomedes Fo, fo, adieu; you palter.
Cressida In faith I do not. Come hither once again.
Ulysses You shake, my lord, at something. Will you go?
You will break out.
Troilus She strokes his cheek.
Ulysses Come, come.
Troilus Nay, stay. By Jove, I will not speak a word.
There is between my will and all offences
A guard of patience: stay a little while.
Thersites How the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and potato finger,
tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry.
Diomedes But will you then?
Cressida In faith I will, la; never trust me else.
Diomedes Give me some token for the surety of it.
Cressida I'll fetch you one.
[Exit.
Ulysses You have sworn patience.
Troilus Fear me not, sweet lord.
I will not be myself, nor have cognition
Of what I feel. I am all patience.
Re-enter CRESSIDA.
Thersites Now the pledge -now, now, now!
Cressida Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.
[Gives the sleeve.
Troilus O beauty, where is thy faith?
Ulysses My lord!
Troilus I will be patient; outwardly I will.
Cressida You look upon that sleeve; behold it well:
He loved me -O false wench! -Give't me again.
[Snatches back the sleeve.
Diomedes Whose was't?
Cressida It is no matter now I have't again.
I will not meet with you tomorrow night.
I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.
Thersites Now she sharpens -well said, whetstone!
Diomedes I shall have it.
Cressida What, this?
Diomedes Ay, that.
Cressida O all you gods! O, pretty, pretty pledge;
Thy master now lies thinking on his bed
Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove,
And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,
As I kiss thee.
[DIOMEDES takes the sleeve.
Diomedes Nay, do not snatch it from me.
Cressida He that takes that doth take my heart withal.
Diomedes I had your heart before; this follows it.
Troilus I did swear patience.
Cressida You shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not.
I'll give you something else.
Diomedes I will have this. Whose was it?
Cressida It is no matter.
Diomedes Come, tell me whose it was.
Cressida 'Twas one that loved me better than you will.
But now you have it, take it.
Diomedes Whose was it?
Cressida By all Diana's waiting-women yond,
And by herself, I will not tell you whose.
Diomedes Tomorrow will I wear it on my helm,
And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.
Troilus Wert thou the devil, and wor'st it on thy horn,
It should be challenged.
Cressida Well, well, 'tis done, 'tis past -and yet it is not:
I will not keep my word.
Diomedes Why then, farewell;
Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.
Cressida You shall not go; one cannot speak a word
But it straight starts you.
Diomedes I do not like this fooling.
Troilus Nor I, by Pluto; but that that likes not you
Pleases me best.
Diomedes What, shall I come? The hour?
Cressida Ay, come -O Jove! -do come -I shall be plagued.
Diomedes Farewell till then.
Cressida Good night; I prithee come.
[Exit DIOMEDES.
Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee,
But with my heart the other eye doth see.
Ah, poor our sex! -this fault in us I find:
The error of our eye directs our mind.
What error leads must err: O then conclude,
Minds swayed by eyes are full of turpitude.
[Exit.
Thersites A proof of strength she could not publish more,
Unless she say "My mind is now turned whore".
[ULYSSES and TROILUS advance.
Ulysses All's done, my lord.
Troilus It is.
Ulysses Why stay we then?
Troilus To make a recordation to my soul
Of every syllable that here was spoke.
But if I tell how these two did co-act,
Shall I not lie, in publishing a truth?
Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,
An esperance so obstinately strong,
That doth invert th'attest of eyes and ears,
As if those organs had deceptious functions,
Created only to calumniate.
Was Cressid here?
Ulysses I cannot conjure, Trojan.
Troilus She was not, sure.
Ulysses Most sure she was.
Troilus Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.
Ulysses Nor mine, my lord -Cressid was here but now.
Troilus Let it not be believed for womanhood.
Think, we had mothers: do not give advantage
To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme
For depravation, to square the general sex
By Cressid's rule -rather, think this not Cressid.
Ulysses What hath she done, prince, that can soil our mothers?
Troilus Nothing at all, unless that this were she.
Thersites Will he swagger himself out on's own eyes?
Troilus This she? No, this is Diomed's Cressida.
If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
If souls guide vows, if vows are sanctimony,
If sanctimony be the gods' delight,
If there be rule in unity itself,
This is not she. O madness of discourse,
That cause sets up with and against thyself!
Bifold authority, where reason can revolt
Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
Without revolt! This is, and is not, Cressid.
Within my soul there doth conduce a fight
Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate
Divides more wider than the sky and earth;
And yet the spacious breadth of this division
Admits no orifex for a point as subtle
As Ariachne's broken woof to enter.
Instance -O instance! strong as Pluto's gates:
Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven.
Instance -O instance! strong as heaven itself:
The bonds of heaven are slipped, dissolved, and loosed;
And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy relics
Of her o'ereaten faith are bound to Diomed.
Ulysses May worthy Troilus be half attached
With that which here his passion doth express?
Troilus Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well
In characters as red as Mars his heart
Inflamed with Venus. Never did young man fancy
With so eternal and so fixed a soul.
Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love,
So much by weight hate I her Diomed.
That sleeve is mine that he'll bear in his helm;
Were it a casque composed by Vulcan's skill
My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout
Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
Constringed in mass by the almighty sun,
Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune's ear
In his descent than shall my prompted sword
Falling on Diomed.
Thersites He'll tickle it for his concupy.
Troilus O Cressid -O false Cressid! False, false, false! -
Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,
And they'll seem glorious.
Ulysses O, contain yourself;
Your passion draws ears hither.
Enter AENEAS.
Aeneas I have been seeking you this hour, my lord.
Hector by this is arming him in Troy.
Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.
Troilus Have with you, prince. My courteous lord, adieu.
Farewell, revolted fair! And, Diomed,
Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head.
Ulysses I'll bring you to the gates.
Troilus Accept distracted thanks.
[Exeunt TROILUS, AENEAS and ULYSSES.
Thersites Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven
-I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything for the
intelligence of this whore: the parrot will not do more for an almond than he
for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery! Still wars and lechery! Nothing else
holds fashion. A burning devil take them!
[Exit.
+ + + + + +
Scene 3. Troy. Before Priam's Palace.
Enter HECTOR and ANDROMACHE.
Andromache When was my lord so much ungently tempered
To stop his ears against admonishment?
Unarm, unarm, and do not fight today.
Hector You train me to offend you; get you gone.
By all the everlasting gods, I'll go.
Andromache My dreams will sure prove ominous to the day.
Hector No more, I say.
Enter CASSANDRA.
Cassandra Where is my brother Hector?
Andromache Here, sister; armed, and bloody in intent.
Consort with me in loud and dear petition;
Pursue we him on knees; for I have dreamed
Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night
Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.
Cassandra O 'tis true.
Hector Ho! Bid my trumpet sound.
Cassandra No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother.
Hector Be gone, I say; the gods have heard me swear.
Cassandra The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows;
They are polluted off'rings, more abhorred
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.
Andromache O be persuaded! Do not count it holy
To hurt by being just. It is as lawful,
For we would give much, to use violent thefts,
And rob in the behalf of charity.
Cassandra It is the purpose that makes strong the vow;
But vows to every purpose must not hold.
Unarm, sweet Hector.
Hector Hold you still, I say.
Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate.
Life every man holds dear; but the dear man
Holds honour far more precious-dear than life.
Enter TROILUS.
How now, young man! Mean'st thou to fight today?
Andromache Cassandra, call my father to persuade.
[Exit CASSANDRA.
Hector No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth.
I am today i'th' vein of chivalry:
Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong,
And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.
Unarm thee, go; and doubt thou not, brave boy,
I'll stand today for thee and me and Troy.
Troilus Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
Which better fits a lion than a man.
Hector What vice is that? Good Troilus, chide me for it.
Troilus When many times the captive Grecian falls,
Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
You bid them rise, and live.
Hector O, 'tis fair play.
Troilus Fool's play, by heaven, Hector.
Hector How now, how now?
Troilus For th' love of all the gods,
Let's leave the hermit pity with our mothers;
And when we have our armours buckled on,
The venomed vengeance ride upon our swords,
Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth.
Hector Fie, savage, fie!
Troilus Hector, then 'tis wars.
Hector Troilus, I would not have you fight today.
Troilus Who should withhold me?
Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars
Beck'ning with fiery truncheon my retire;
Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,
Their eyes o'ergalled with recourse of tears;
Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,
Opposed to hinder me, should stop my way
But by my ruin.
Enter PRIAM and CASSANDRA.
Cassandra Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast.
He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay,
Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,
Fall all together.
Priam Come, Hector, come; go back.
Thy wife hath dreamt; thy mother hath had visions;
Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself
Am, like a prophet, suddenly enrapt
To tell thee that this day is ominous.
Therefore, come back.
Hector Aeneas is afield,
And I do stand engaged to many Greeks,
Even in the faith of valour, to appear
This morning to them.
Priam Ay, but thou shalt not go.
Hector I must not break my faith.
You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir,
Let me not shame respect, but give me leave
To take that course, by your consent and voice,
Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam
Cassandra O Priam, yield not to him.
Andromache Do not, dear father.
Hector Andromache, I am offended with you.
Upon the love you bear me, get you in.
[Exit ANDROMACHE.
Troilus This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl
Makes all these bodements.
Cassandra O farewell, dear Hector!
Look how thou diest! Look how thy eye turns pale!
Look how thy wounds do bleed at many vents!
Hark how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out!
How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth!
Behold distraction, frenzy, and amazement
Like witless antics one another meet,
And all cry "Hector! Hector's dead! O, Hector!"
Troilus Away, away!
Cassandra Farewell. Yet soft, Hector, I take my leave;
Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.
[Exit.
Hector You are amazed, my liege, at her exclaim.
Go in and cheer the town; we'll forth and fight,
Do deeds worth praise, and tell you them at night.
Priam Farewell; the gods with safety stand about thee.
[Exeunt PRIAM and HECTOR severally.
[Alarum.
Troilus They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe
I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.
Enter PANDARUS.
Pandarus Do you hear, my lord, do you hear?
Troilus What now?
Pandarus Here's a letter come from yond poor girl.
Troilus Let me read.
Pandarus A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick so troubles me -and
the foolish fortune of this girl, and what one thing, what another -that I
shall leave you one o'th's days; and I have a rheum in mine eyes too, and such
an ache in my bones that unless a man were cursed I cannot tell what to think
on't. What says she there?
Troilus Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart;
Th' effect doth operate another way.
[Tears the letter.
Go, wind, to wind; there turn and change together.
My love with words and errors still she feeds,
But edifies another with her deeds.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 4. Between Troy and the Grecian Camp.
Alarum. Enter THERSITES. Excursion.
Thersites Now they are clapper-clawing one another, I'll go look on. That
dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy, doting,
foolish young knave's sleeve of Troy there in his helm. I would fain see them
meet, that that same young Trojan ass that loves the whore there might send
that Greekish whoremasterly villain with the sleeve back to the dissembling
luxurious drab of a sleeveless errand. O'th' other side, the policy of those
crafty swearing rascals -that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, and
that same dog-fox, Ulysses -is not proved worth a blackberry. They set me up
in policy that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles;
and now is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm today;
whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an
ill opinion.
Enter DIOMEDES and TROILUS.
Soft, here comes sleeve, and th'other.
Troilus Fly not, for shouldst thou take the river Styx
I would swim after.
Diomedes Thou dost miscall retire:
I do not fly; but advantageous care
Withdrew me from the odds of multitude.
Have at thee!
Thersites Hold thy whore, Grecian! Now for thy whore, Trojan! Now the
sleeve, now the sleeve!
[Exeunt DIOMEDES and TROILUS, fighting.
Enter HECTOR.
Hector What art thou, Greek? Art thou for Hector's match?
Art thou of blood and honour?
Thersites No, no, I am a rascal, a scurvy railing knave, a very filthy rogue.
Hector I do believe thee. Live.
[Exit.
Thersites God-a-mercy that thou wilt believe me, but a plague break thy
neck for frighting me! What's become of the wenching rogues? I think they have
swallowed one another. I would laugh at that miracle; yet, in a sort, lechery
eats itself. I'll seek them.
[Exit.
+ + + + + +
Scene 5. Another Part of the Plains.
Enter DIOMEDES and SERVANT.
Diomedes Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus' horse;
Present the fair steed to my Lady Cressid.
Fellow, commend my service to her beauty;
Tell her I have chastised the amorous Trojan,
And am her knight by proof.
Servant I go, my lord.
[Exit.
Enter AGAMEMNON.
Agamemnon Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamas
Hath beat down Menon; bastard Margarelon
Hath Doreus prisoner,
And stands colossus-wise waving his beam
Upon the pashed corses of the kings
Epistrophus and Cedius. Polixenes is slain;
Amphimacus and Thoas deadly hurt;
Patroclus ta'en or slain; and Palamedes
Sore hurt and bruised; the dreadful Sagittary
Appals our numbers. Haste we, Diomed,
To reinforcement, or we perish all.
Enter NESTOR and SOLDIERS.
Nestor Go, bear Patroclus' body to Achilles,
And bid the snail-paced Ajax arm for shame.
There is a thousand Hectors in the field:
Now here he fights on Galathe his horse,
And here lacks work; anon he's there afoot,
And there they fly or die like scaled sculls
Before the belching whale; then is he yonder,
And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge,
Fall down before him like the mower's swath.
Here, there, and everywhere, he leaves and takes,
Dexterity so obeying appetite
That what he will he does, and does so much
That proof is called impossibility.
Enter ULYSSES.
Ulysses O, courage, courage, princes! Great Achilles
Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance:
Patroclus' wounds have roused his drowsy blood,
Together with his mangled Myrmidons
That noseless, handless, hacked and chipped, come to him,
Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend,
And foams at mouth, and he is armed and at it,
Roaring for Troilus, who hath done today
Mad and fantastic execution,
Engaging and redeeming of himself
With such a careless force and forceless care
As if that luck in very spite of cunning
Bade him win all.
Enter AJAX.
Ajax Troilus! Thou coward Troilus!
[Exit.
Diomedes Ay, there, there!
[Exit.
Nestor So, so, we draw together.
Enter ACHILLES.
Achilles Where is this Hector?
Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face;
Know what it is to meet Achilles angry.
Hector! Where's Hector? I will none but Hector.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 6. Another Part of the Plains.
Enter AJAX.
Ajax Troilus! Thou coward Troilus, show thy head!
Enter DIOMEDES.
Diomedes Troilus, I say! Where's Troilus?
Ajax What wouldst thou?
Diomedes I would correct him.
Ajax Were I the general, thou shouldst have my office
Ere that correction. Troilus, I say! What, Troilus!
Enter TROILUS.
Troilus O traitor Diomed! Turn thy false face, thou traitor,
And pay the life thou owest me for my horse.
Diomedes Ha, art thou there?
Ajax I'll fight with him alone; stand, Diomed.
Diomedes He is my prize; I will not look upon.
Troilus Come, both you cogging Greeks; have at you both!
[Exeunt fighting.
Enter HECTOR.
Hector Yea, Troilus? O, well fought, my youngest brother.
Enter ACHILLES.
Achilles Now do I see thee. Ha, have at thee, Hector!
Hector Pause, if thou wilt.
Achilles I do disdain thy courtesy, proud Trojan.
Be happy that my arms are out of use;
My rest and negligence befriends thee now,
But thou anon shalt hear of me again;
Till when, go seek thy fortune.
[Exit.
Hector Fare thee well.
I would have been much more a fresher man,
Had I expected thee.
Re-enter TROILUS.
How now, my brother?
Troilus Ajax hath ta'en Aeneas: -shall it be?
No; by the flame of yonder glorious heaven,
He shall not carry him: I'll be ta'en too,
Or bring him off. Fate, hear me what I say:
I reck not though thou end my life today.
[Exit.
Enter ONE in sumptuous armour.
Hector Stand, stand, thou Greek; thou art a goodly mark.
No? Wilt thou not? I like thy armour well;
I'll frush it, and unlock the rivets all,
But I'll be master of it. Wilt thou not, beast, abide?
Why then, fly on; I'll hunt thee for thy hide.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 7. Another Part of the Plains.
Enter ACHILLES with MYRMIDONS.
Achilles Come here about me, you my Myrmidons;
Mark what I say. Attend me where I wheel;
Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath;
And when I have the bloody Hector found,
Empale him with your weapons round about;
In fellest manner execute your arms.
Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings eye.
It is decreed Hector the great must die.
[Exeunt.
Enter MENELAUS and PARIS, fighting; then THERSITES.
Thersites The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull! Now, dog!
'Loo, Paris, 'loo! Now, my double-horned Spartan! 'Loo, Paris, 'loo! The bull
has the game -'ware horns, ho!
[Exeunt PARIS and MENELAUS.
Enter the bastard MARGARELON.
Margarelon Turn, slave, and fight.
Thersites What are thou?
Margarelon A bastard son of Priam's.
Thersites I am a bastard too; I love bastards. I am a bastard begot,
bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in everything
illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one
bastard? Take heed, the quarrel's most ominous to us -if the son of a whore
fight for a whore, he tempts judgement. Farewell, bastard.
[Exit.
Margarelon The devil take thee, coward!
[Exit.
+ + + + + +
Scene 8. Another Part of the Plains.
Enter HECTOR dragging the suit of sumptuous armour.
Hector Most putrefied core so fair without,
Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life.
Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath.
Rest, sword, thou hast thy fill of blood and death.
Enter ACHILLES and his MYRMIDONS.
Achilles Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set;
How ugly night comes breathing at his heels.
Even with the vail and darking of the sun,
To close the day up, Hector's life is done.
Hector I am unarmed; forego this vantage, Greek.
Achilles Strike, fellows, strike! This is the man I seek.
[HECTOR falls.
So, Ilion, fall thou. Now, Troy, sink down;
Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone.
On, Myrmidons, and cry you all amain
"Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain".
[Retreat.
Hark, a retreat upon our Grecian part.
Myrmidon The Trojan trumpets sound the like, my lord.
Achilles The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth
And stickler-like the armies separates.
My half-supped sword, that frankly would have fed,
Pleased with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed.
Come, tie his body to my horse's tail;
Along the field I will the Trojan trail.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 9. Another Part of the Plains.
Sound retreat. Shouts within.
Enter AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, and the REST, marching with
drums.
Agamemnon Hark, hark, what shout is that?
Nestor Peace, drums!
Soldiers [Within.] Achilles, Achilles! Hector's slain! Achilles!
Diomedes The bruit is Hector's slain, and by Achilles.
Ajax If it be so, yet bragless let it be:
Great Hector was a man as good as he.
Agamemnon March patiently along. Let one be sent
To pray Achilles see us at our tent.
If in his death the gods have us befriended,
Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended.
[Exeunt.
+ + + + + +
Scene 10. Another Part of the Plains.
Enter AENEAS, PARIS, ANTENOR, and DEIPHOBUS.
Aeneas Stand, ho! -yet are we masters of the field.
Never go home; here starve we out the night.
Enter TROILUS.
Troilus Hector is slain.
All Hector? The gods forbid!
Troilus He's dead; and at the murderer's horse's tail
In beastly sort dragged through the shameful field.
Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed.
Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy.
I say at once let your brief plagues be mercy,
And linger not our sure destructions on.
Aeneas My lord, you do discomfort all the host.
Troilus You understand me not that tell me so:
I do not speak of flight, of fear, of death,
But dare all imminence that gods and men
Address their dangers in. Hector is gone.
Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba?
Let him that will a screech-owl aye be called
Go into Troy and say there "Hector's dead".
There is a word will Priam turn to stone,
Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,
Cold statues of the youth, and, in a word,
Scare Troy out of itself. But march away;
Hector is dead -there is no more to say.
Stay yet. You vile abominable tents
Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains,
Let Titan rise as early as he dare,
I'll through and through you! And thou great-sized coward,
No space of earth shall sunder our two hates;
I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still,
That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy's thoughts.
Strike a free march to Troy! With comfort go:
Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.
Enter PANDARUS.
Pandarus But hear you, hear you.
Troilus Hence, broker-lackey; ignomy and shame
Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name.
[Exeunt all but PANDARUS.
Pandarus A goodly med'cine for mine aching bones! O world, world, world!
Thus is the poor agent despised. O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you
set a-work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be so desired, and
the performance so loathed? What verse for it? What instance for it? -let me
see:
Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing,
Till he hath lost his honey and his sting;
And being once subdued in armed tail,
Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.
Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths:
As many as be here of Pandar's hall,
Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar's fall;
Or if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,
Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.
Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade,
Some two months hence my will shall here be made;
- It should be now, but that my fear is this:
Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss -
Till then I'll sweat, and seek about for eases,
And at that time bequeath you my diseases.
[Exit.