The Illustrated Works of Shakespeare/Illustrated Works of Shakespeare, The (1990)(Animated Pixels)[!][CDTV-PC].iso/shakes/text/22/02_02

Text File | 1991-04-10 | 10KB | 251 lines

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 benumbd 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.