The Complete Works of William Shakespeare/The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.iso/shakespr/troilus.txt

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    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT I



SCENE II    The Same. A street.


    [Enter CRESSIDA and 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, fix'd, to-day was moved:
    He chid Andromache and struck his armourer,
    And, like as there were husbandry in war,
    Before the sun rose he was harness'd 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.

CRESSIDA    Who comes here?

ALEXANDER    Madam, your uncle Pandarus.

    [Enter 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    Even 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 to-day, 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 wit 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 judgment, 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, an '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' the 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 mill-stones.

PANDARUS    And Cassandra laughed.

CRESSIDA    But there was 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    An'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, an Paris so chafed, and all the
    rest so laughed, that it passed.

CRESSIDA    So let it now; for it has been 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.

    [A retreat sounded]

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.

CRESSIDA    Speak not so loud.

    [AENEAS passes]

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.

    [ANTENOR passes]

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' the soundest
    judgments in 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.

    [HECTOR passes]

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! any thing, he cares not; an the devil come
    to him, it's all one: by God's lid, it does one's
    heart good. Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris.

    [PARIS passes]

    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 to-day? 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.

    [HELENUS passes]

CRESSIDA    Who's that?

PANDARUS    That's Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That's
    Helenus. I think he went not forth to-day. 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?

    [TROILUS passes]

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.

CRESSIDA    Here come more.

    [Forces pass]

PANDARUS    Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran!
    porridge after meat! I could live and die i' the
    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 such like, the spice and salt that season 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! one 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.

PANDARUS    You are such another!

    [Enter Troilus's Boy]

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.

CRESSIDA    By the same token, you are a bawd.

    [Exit PANDARUS]

    Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice,
    He offers in another's enterprise;
    But more in Troilus thousand fold 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 prize the thing ungain'd 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; ungain'd, beseech:
    Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear,
    Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

    [Exeunt]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT I



SCENE III    The Grecian camp. Before Agamemnon's tent.


    [Sennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES,
    MENELAUS, and 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: cheques and disasters
    Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd,
    As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
    Infect the sound pine and divert 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 abash'd behold our works,
    And call 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 godlike 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-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,
    Bounding between the two moist elements,
    Like Perseus' horse: where's then the saucy boat
    Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now
    Co-rivall'd 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 breeze
    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
    Retorts 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 which,

    [To AGAMEMNON]

    most mighty for thy place and sway,

    [To NESTOR]

    And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-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, hatch'd in silver,
    Should with a bond of air, strong as the axle-tree
    On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish 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 lack'd 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,
    The 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 medicinable eye
    Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
    And posts, like the commandment of a king,
    Sans cheque 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,
    Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,
    Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
    Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
    The primogenitive 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 every thing 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 disdain'd
    By him one step below, he by the next,
    That 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 discover'd
    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 stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage,--
    Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested 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 dropp'd
    Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff
    The large Achilles, on his press'd bed lolling,
    From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;
    Cries 'Excellent! 'tis Agamemnon just.
    Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,
    As he being drest 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-will'd, and bears his head
    In such a rein, in full as proud a place
    As broad Achilles; 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 enemies' weight,--
    Why, this hath not a finger's dignity:
    They call this bed-work, mappery, 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.

    [A 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, unarm'd,
    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 the praised himself bring the praise forth:
    But what the repining enemy commends,
    That breath fame blows; that praise, sole sure,
    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 naught 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.

    [Trumpet sounds]

    We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy
    A prince call'd 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 among 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 to-morrow 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 am he.

NESTOR    Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man
    When Hector's grandsire suck'd: he is old now;
    But if there be not in our Grecian host
    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 wither'd 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 prove 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, sir.
    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 all but 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 cropp'd,
    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 judgment,
    Ay, with celerity, find Hector's purpose
    Pointing on him.

ULYSSES    And wake him to the answer, think you?

NESTOR    Yes, 'tis most meet: whom 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 finest 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 us all, a man distill'd
    Out of our virtues; who miscarrying,
    What heart receives from hence the conquering part,
    To steel a strong opinion to themselves?
    Which entertain'd, 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 our 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 dogg'd 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 foil'd,
    Why then, we did our main opinion crush
    In taint of our best man. No, make a lottery;
    And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw
    The sort to fight with Hector: among ourselves
    Give him allowance for the better 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 employ'd plucks down Achilles' plumes.

NESTOR    Ulysses,
    Now 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 tarre the mastiffs on, as 'twere their bone.

    [Exeunt]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT II



SCENE I    A part of 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?

    [Beating him]

    Feel, then.

THERSITES    The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel
    beef-witted lord!

AJAX    Speak then, thou vinewedst 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 strikest 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
    loathsomest scab in Greece. When thou art forth in
    the incursions, thou strikest as slow as another.

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 Proserpine's beauty, ay, that thou
    barkest at him.

AJAX    Mistress Thersites!

THERSITES    Thou shouldest strike him.

AJAX    Cobloaf!

THERSITES    He would pun thee into shivers with his fist, as a
    sailor breaks a biscuit.

AJAX    [Beating him]  You whoreson cur!

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 assinego
    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    [Beating him]  You cur!

THERSITES    Mars his idiot! do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do.

    [Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS]

ACHILLES    Why, how now, Ajax! wherefore do you thus? 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 nineth 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 offers to beat 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 fools 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 voluntarily.

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 have a great
    catch, if he knock out either of your brains: a'
    were as 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 clotpoles, 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 proclaim'd through all our host:
    That Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun,
    Will with a trumpet 'twixt our tents and Troy
    To-morrow 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 lottery; otherwise
    He knew his man.

AJAX    O, meaning you. I will go learn more of it.

    [Exeunt]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT II



SCENE II    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 toucheth 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 call'd
    The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
    To the 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 employ'd 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 disorb'd? 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 cramm'd reason: reason and respect
    Make livers pale and lustihood deject.

HECTOR    Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost
    The holding.

TROILUS                      What is 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 attributive
    To what infectiously itself affects,
    Without some image of the affected merit.

TROILUS    I take to-day 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 judgment: how may I avoid,
    Although my will distaste what it elected,
    The wife I chose? 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 soil'd 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 touch'd 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 launch'd above a thousand ships,
    And turn'd crown'd 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 noble prize--
    As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands
    And cried 'Inestimable!'--why do you now
    The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,
    And do a deed that fortune never 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, raving]

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 eld,
    Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,
    Add to my clamours! 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 Ilion 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 brain-sick 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 touch'd 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 ransack'd 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 bestow'd 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 distemper'd 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 render'd 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-order'd 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 return'd: 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 spritely brethren, I propend to you
    In resolution to keep Helen still,
    For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependance
    Upon our joint and several dignities.

TROILUS    Why, there you touch'd 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 dun 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]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT II



SCENE III    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 enginer! 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 ye 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 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 corse, 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 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 knowest.

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 of the prover. It suffices me thou
    art. Look you, who comes here?

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 cuckold and a
    whore; 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]

    [Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, and AJAX]

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 shent 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 say so 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, 'tis 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 composure a fool
    could disunite.

ULYSSES    The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily
    untie. Here comes Patroclus.

    [Re-enter 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 any thing 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,
    And after-dinner's breath.

AGAMEMNON    Hear you, Patroclus:
    We are too well acquainted with these answers:
    But his evasion, wing'd 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 come to speak with him; and you shall not sin,
    If you do say we think him over-proud
    And under-honest, in self-assumption greater
    Than in the note of judgment; 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 pride 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.

AJAX    I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering of toads.

NESTOR    Yet he loves himself: is't not strange?

    [Aside]

    [Re-enter ULYSSES]

ULYSSES    Achilles will not to the field to-morrow.

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: possess'd 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 swoln and hot discourse
    That 'twixt his mental and his active parts
    Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages
    And batters down 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 worshipp'd
    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 to DIOMEDES]  O, this is well; he rubs the
    vein of him.

DIOMEDES    [Aside to NESTOR]  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    An a' be proud with me, I'll pheeze his pride:
    Let me go to him.

ULYSSES    Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.

AJAX    A paltry, insolent fellow!

NESTOR    How he describes himself!

AJAX    Can he not be sociable?

ULYSSES    The raven chides blackness.

AJAX    I'll let his humours blood.

AGAMEMNON    He will be the physician that should be the patient.

AJAX    An all men were o' my mind,--

ULYSSES    Wit would be out of fashion.

AJAX    A' should not bear it so, a' should eat swords first:
    shall pride carry it?

NESTOR    An 'twould, you'ld carry half.

ULYSSES    A' would have ten shares.

AJAX    I will knead him; I'll make him supple.

NESTOR    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 does 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 pelter 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 all erudition:
    But he that disciplined thy 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:
    Put pardon, father Nestor, were your days
    As green as Ajax' and your brain so temper'd,
    You should not have the eminence of him,
    But be as Ajax.

AJAX                      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: to-morrow
    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]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT III



SCENE I    Troy. Priam's palace.


    [Enter a Servant and PANDARUS]

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.

    [Music within]

    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
    invisible soul,--

PANDARUS    Who, my cousin Cressida?

Servant    No, sir, Helen: could you not 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    Sodden business! there's a stewed phrase indeed!

    [Enter PARIS and HELEN, attended]

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, to go:--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 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 to-night?

HELEN    Nay, but, my lord,--

PANDARUS    What says my sweet queen? My cousin will fall out
    with you. 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 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! oh! they die!
    Yet that which seems the wound to kill,
    Doth turn oh! oh! to ha! ha! he!
    So dying love lives still:
    Oh! oh! a while, but ha! ha! ha!
    Oh! oh! 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
    a-field to-day?

PARIS    Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the
    gallantry of Troy: I  would fain have armed to-day,
    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 to-day. 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]

    [A retreat sounded]

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 touch'd,
    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]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT III



SCENE II    The same. Pandarus' orchard.


    [Enter PANDARUS and Troilus's Boy, meeting]

PANDARUS    How now! where's thy master? at my cousin
    Cressida's?

Boy    No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.

PANDARUS    O, here he comes.

    [Enter TROILUS]

    How now, how now!

TROILUS    Sirrah, walk off.

    [Exit Boy]

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 Pandarus,
    From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings
    And fly with me to Cressid!

PANDARUS    Walk here i' the orchard, I'll bring her straight.

    [Exit]

TROILUS    I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
    The imaginary relish is so sweet
    That it enchants my sense: what will it be,
    When that the watery palate tastes indeed
    Love's thrice repured nectar? death, I fear me,
    Swooning 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 encountering
    The eye of majesty.

    [Re-enter PANDARUS with CRESSIDA]

PANDARUS    Come, come, what need you blush? shame's a baby.
    Here she is now: swear the oaths now to her that
    you have sworn to me. What, are you gone again?
    you must be watched ere you be made tame, must you?
    Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward,
    we'll put you i' the fills. Why do you not speak to
    her? Come, draw this curtain, and let's see your
    picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend
    daylight! an 'twere dark, you'ld close sooner.
    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' the 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' the 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 cherubims; 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 burs, 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 not, till now, 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 blabb'd? who shall be true to us,
    When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
    But, though I loved you well, I woo'd you not;
    And yet, good faith, I wish'd 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! stop my mouth.

TROILUS    And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.

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! an you take leave till to-morrow 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. I would be gone:
    Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.

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 ramp 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 winnow'd 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,
    Want 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 the 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 waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,
    And blind oblivion swallow'd 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, as 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 a
    bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your
    pretty encounters, press it to death: away!
    And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here
    Bed, chamber, Pandar to provide this gear!

    [Exeunt]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT III



SCENE III    The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent.


    [Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX,
    MENELAUS, and CALCHAS]

CALCHAS    Now, princes, for the service I have done you,
    The 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 love,
    I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,
    Incurr'd a traitor's name; exposed myself,
    From certain and possess'd conveniences,
    To doubtful fortunes; sequestering 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 register'd 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, call'd 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 to-morrow
    Be answer'd 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' the 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 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 be 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 look'd 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 used 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 honour for those honours
    That are without him, as place, riches, favour,
    Prizes of accident as oft as merit:
    Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
    The love that lean'd on them as slippery too,
    Do 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 travell'd and is mirror'd 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 any thing,
    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 form'd in the applause
    Where they're extended; who, like an arch,
    reverberates
    The voice again, or, like a gate of steel
    Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
    His figure and his heat.  I was much wrapt 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 to-morrow--
    An act that very chance doth throw upon him--
    Ajax renown'd. 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 shrieking.

ACHILLES    I do believe it; for they pass'd 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 devour'd
    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 mockery. 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 enter'd tide, they all rush by
    And leave you hindmost;
    Or like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,
    Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
    O'er-run 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 the hand,
    And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly,
    Grasps in the comer: 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 gawds,
    Though they are made and moulded of things past,
    And give to dust that is a little gilt
    More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.
    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 Plutus' gold,
    Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps,
    Keeps place with thought and almost, like the gods,
    Does 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 condemn'd 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
    To invite the Trojan lords after the combat
    To see us here unarm'd: I have a woman's longing,
    An appetite that I am sick withal,
    To see great Hector in his weeds of peace,
    To talk with him and to behold his visage,
    Even to my full of view.

    [Enter THERSITES]

           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 to-morrow 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, an '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 forever; for if Hector break not his
    neck i' the combat, he'll break 't himself in
    vain-glory. 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, language-less, 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 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 b' wi' you, with all my heart.

PATROCLUS    Your answer, sir.

THERSITES    If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven o'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 o' 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 bear another to his horse; for that's the more
    capable creature.

ACHILLES    My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd;
    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]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT IV



SCENE I    Troy. A street.


    [Enter, from one side, AENEAS, and Servant with a
    torch; from the other, PARIS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR,
    DIOMEDES, 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, wherein
    You told how Diomed, 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 arm'd, as black defiance
    As heart can think or courage execute.

DIOMEDES    The one and other Diomed embraces.
    Our bloods are now 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 to-morrow!

AENEAS    We know each other well.

DIOMEDES    We do; and long to know each other worse.

PARIS    This is the most despiteful gentle greeting,
    The noblest hateful love, that e'er I heard of.
    What business, lord, so early?

AENEAS    I was sent for to the king; but why, I know not.

PARIS    His purpose meets you: 'twas 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: I constantly do think--
    Or rather, call my thought a certain knowledge--
    My brother Troilus lodges there to-night:
    Rouse him and give him note of our approach.
    With the whole quality wherefore: I fear
    We shall be much unwelcome.

AENEAS    That I assure you:
    Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece
    Than Cressid borne from Troy.

PARIS    There is no help;
    The bitter disposition of the time
    Will have it so. On, lord; we'll follow you.

AENEAS    Good morrow, all.

    [Exit with Servant]

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 best,
    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, the 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 suffer'd 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 but commend what we intend to sell.
    Here lies our way.

    [Exeunt]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT IV



SCENE II    The same. Court of 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 a-weary 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 tediously 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.

CRESSIDA    A pestilence on him! now will he be mocking:
    I shall have such a life!

    [Enter PANDARUS]

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!
    hast not slept to-night? would he not, a naughty
    man, let it sleep? a bugbear take him!

CRESSIDA    Did not I tell you? Would he were knock'd i' the head!

    [Knocking within]

    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.

    [Knocking within]

    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    Who!--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.

    [Re-enter TROILUS]

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
    Deliver'd 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]

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!

    [Re-enter CRESSIDA]

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! 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 extremes 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]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT IV



SCENE III    The same. Street before Pandarus' house.


    [Enter PARIS, TROILUS, AENEAS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR,
    and DIOMEDES]

PARIS    It is great morning, and the hour prefix'd
    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 offering 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]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT IV



SCENE IV    The same. 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.

PANDARUS    Here, here, here he comes.

    [Enter TROILUS]

    Ah, sweet ducks!

CRESSIDA    O Troilus! Troilus!

    [Embracing him]

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 strain'd a purity,
    That the bless'd 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 it possible?

TROILUS    And suddenly; where injury of chance
    Puts back leave-taking, justles roughly by
    All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips
    Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents
    Our lock'd 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 consign'd kisses to them,
    He fumbles up into a lose adieu,
    And scants us with a single famish'd kiss,
    Distasted with the salt of broken tears.

AENEAS    [Within]  My lord, is the lady ready?

TROILUS    Hark! you are call'd: 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 woful 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 while I speak it, love:
    The Grecian youths are full of quality;
    They're loving, well composed with gifts 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 afeard.

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 Cressida 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 call'd 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 you, 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]

    [Trumpet within]

PARIS    Hark! Hector's trumpet.

AENEAS    How have we spent this morning!
    The prince must think me tardy and remiss,
    That sore to ride before him to 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]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT IV



SCENE V    The Grecian camp. Lists set out.


    [Enter AJAX, armed; AGAMEMNON, ACHILLES, PATROCLUS,
    MENELAUS, ULYSSES, NESTOR, 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 puff'd Aquilon:
    Come, stretch thy chest and let thy eyes spout blood;
    Thou blow'st for Hector.

    [Trumpet sounds]

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, with CRESSIDA]

AGAMEMNON    Is this the Lady Cressid?

DIOMEDES    Even she.

AGAMEMNON    Most dearly welcome to the Greeks, sweet lady.

NESTOR    Our general doth salute you with a kiss.

ULYSSES    Yet is the kindness but particular;
    'Twere better she were kiss'd in general.

NESTOR    And very courtly counsel: I'll begin.
    So much for Nestor.

ACHILLES    I'll take what winter from your lips, fair lady:
    Achilles bids you welcome.

MENELAUS    I had good argument for kissing once.

PATROCLUS    But that's no argument for kissing now;
    For this popp'd Paris in his hardiment,
    And parted thus you and your argument.

ULYSSES    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:
    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?

PATROCLUS    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're 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 o' the 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.

    [Exit with 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 ticklish reader! set them down
    For sluttish spoils of opportunity
    And daughters of the game.

    [Trumpet within]

ALL    The Trojans' trumpet.

AGAMEMNON    Yonder comes the troop.

    [Enter HECTOR, armed; AENEAS, TROILUS, and other
    Trojans, with Attendants]

AENEAS    Hail, all you 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 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.

ACHILLES    'Tis done like Hector; but securely done,
    A little proudly, and great deal misprizing
    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 enter the lists]

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 calm'd:
    His heart and hand both open and both free;
    For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows;
    Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty,
    Nor dignifies an impure 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. Hector and Ajax 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!

DIOMEDES    You must no more.

    [Trumpets cease]

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 borrow'dst from thy mother,
    My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword
    Be drain'd! 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 unarm'd 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.

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 strew'd with husks
    And formless ruin of oblivion;
    But in this extant moment, faith and troth,
    Strain'd 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 the 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' the 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 hemm'd thee in,
    Like an Olympian wrestling: this have I seen;
    But this thy countenance, still lock'd 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 saw 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 walk'd 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'ld fight with thee to-morrow.
    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 blest 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 an 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 every where, 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?
    To-morrow do I meet thee, fell as death;
    To-night all friends.

HECTOR    Thy hand upon that match.

AGAMEMNON    First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent;
    There in the full convive we: afterwards,
    As Hector's leisure and your bounties shall
    Concur together, severally entreat him.
    Beat loud the tabourines, let the trumpets blow,
    That this great soldier may his welcome know.

    [Exeunt all except 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 to-night;
    Who neither looks upon the heaven nor earth,
    But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
    On the fair Cressid.

TROILUS    Shall 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]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT V



SCENE I    The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent.


    [Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS]

ACHILLES    I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night,
    Which with my scimitar I'll cool to-morrow.
    Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.

PATROCLUS    Here comes Thersites.

    [Enter THERSITES]

ACHILLES    How now, thou core of envy!
    Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news?

THERSITES    Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, 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, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs,
    loads o' gravel i' the back, lethargies, cold
    palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing
    lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas,
    limekilns i' the 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 meanest
    thou to curse thus?

THERSITES    Do I curse thee?

PATROCLUS    Why no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson
    indistinguishable cur, no.

THERSITES    No! why art thou then exasperate, thou idle
    immaterial skein of sleave-silk, thou green sarcenet
    flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's
    purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered
    with such waterflies, diminutives of nature!

PATROCLUS    Out, gall!

THERSITES    Finch-egg!

ACHILLES    My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
    From my great purpose in to-morrow'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! Hey-day!
    spirits and fires!

    [Enter HECTOR, TROILUS, AJAX, AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES,
    NESTOR, MENELAUS, and 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.

ULYSSES                      Here comes himself to guide you.

    [Re-enter ACHILLES]

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    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    Sweet sir, you honour me.

HECTOR    And so, good night.

    [Exit DIOMEDES; ULYSSES and TROILUS following]

ACHILLES    Come, come, enter my tent.

    [Exeunt ACHILLES, HECTOR, AJAX, and NESTOR]

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; 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' tent: I'll
    after. Nothing but lechery! all incontinent varlets!

    [Exit]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT V



SCENE II    The same. Before Calchas' tent.


    [Enter DIOMEDES]

DIOMEDES    What, are you up here, ho? speak.

CALCHAS    [Within]  Who calls?

DIOMEDES    Calchas, I think. Where's your daughter?

CALCHAS    [Within]  She comes to you.

    [Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance;
    after them, THERSITES]

ULYSSES    Stand where the torch may not discover us.

    [Enter CRESSIDA]

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 cliff;
    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    Foh, foh! 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 any thing 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 wither'd truth!

ULYSSES                      Why, how now, lord!

TROILUS    By Jove,
    I will be patient.

CRESSIDA                      Guardian!--why, Greek!

DIOMEDES    Foh, foh! 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.

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.

DIOMEDES    Whose was't?

CRESSIDA    It is no matter, now I have't again.
    I will not meet with you to-morrow 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 in his bed
    Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove,
    And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,
    As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me;
    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's 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    To-morrow will I wear it on my helm,
    And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.

TROILUS    Wert thou the devil, and worest 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.

THERSITES    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 sway'd by eyes are full of turpitude.

    [Exit]

THERSITES    A proof of strength she could not publish more,
    Unless she said ' My mind is now turn'd whore.'

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 the 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 be sanctimonies,
    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 itself!
    Bi-fold 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 slipp'd, 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'er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.

ULYSSES    May worthy Troilus be half attach'd
    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 fix'd 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 on 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 any thing 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]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT V



SCENE III    Troy. Before Priam's palace.


    [Enter HECTOR and ANDROMACHE]

ANDROMACHE    When was my lord so much ungently temper'd,
    To stop his ears against admonishment?
    Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day.

HECTOR    You train me to offend you; get you in:
    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; arm'd, and bloody in intent.
    Consort with me in loud and dear petition,
    Pursue we him on knees; for I have dream'd
    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 offerings, more abhorr'd
    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:
    Lie every man holds dear; but the brave man
    Holds honour far more precious-dear than life.

    [Enter TROILUS]

    How now, young man! mean'st thou to fight to-day?

ANDROMACHE    Cassandra, call my father to persuade.

    [Exit CASSANDRA]

HECTOR    No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth;
    I am to-day i' the 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 to-day 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 the love of all the gods,
    Let's leave the hermit pity with our mothers,
    And when we have our armours buckled on,
    The venom'd 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 to-day.

TROILUS    Who should withhold me?
    Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars
    Beckoning with fiery truncheon my retire;
    Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,
    Their eyes o'ergalled with recourse of tears;
    Not you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,
    Opposed to hinder me, should stop my way,
    But by my ruin.

    [Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM]

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 dream'd; 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 a-field;
    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! 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 severally PRIAM and HECTOR. Alarums]

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' these 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:
    The effect doth operate another way.

    [Tearing 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 severally]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT V



SCENE IV    Plains between Troy and the Grecian camp.


    [Alarums: excursions. Enter THERSITES]

THERSITES    Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go
    look on. That dissembling abominable varlets 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
    whore-masterly villain, with the sleeve, back to the
    dissembling luxurious drab, of a sleeveless errand.
    O' the t'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 worthy 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
    to-day; whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim
    barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion.
    Soft! here comes sleeve, and t'other.

    [Enter DIOMEDES, TROILUS following]

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 TROILUS and DIOMEDES, 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 frightening 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]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT V



SCENE V    Another part of the plains.


    [Enter DIOMEDES and a 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: Polyxenes is slain,
    Amphimachus 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]

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 there 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 every where, he leaves and takes,
    Dexterity so obeying appetite
    That what he will he does, and does so much
    That proof is call'd 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, hack'd and chipp'd, come to him,
    Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend
    And foams at mouth, and he is arm'd and at it,
    Roaring for Troilus, who hath done to-day
    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.

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]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT V



SCENE VI    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 thy 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. How now, my brother!

    [Re-enter TROILUS]

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 I end my life to-day.

    [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]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT V



SCENE VII    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 aims.
    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-
    henned sparrow! 'loo, Paris, 'loo! The bull has the
    game: ware horns, ho!

    [Exeunt PARIS and MENELAUS]

    [Enter MARGARELON]

MARGARELON    Turn, slave, and fight.

THERSITES    What art 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 every thing 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 judgment:
    farewell, bastard.

    [Exit]

MARGARELON    The devil take thee, coward!

    [Exit]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT V



SCENE VIII    Another part of the plains.


    [Enter HECTOR]

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.

    [Puts off his helmet and hangs his shield
    behind him]

    [Enter ACHILLES and 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 unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek.

ACHILLES    Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek.

    [HECTOR falls]

    So, Ilion, fall thou next! 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.'

    [A retreat sounded]

    Hark! a retire upon our Grecian part.

MYRMIDONS    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-supp'd sword, that frankly would have fed,
    Pleased with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed.

    [Sheathes his sword]

    Come, tie his body to my horse's tail;
    Along the field I will the Trojan trail.

    [Exeunt]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT V



SCENE IX    Another part of the plains.


    [Enter AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NESTOR, DIOMEDES,
    and others, marching. Shouts within]

AGAMEMNON    Hark! hark! what shout is that?

NESTOR    Peace, drums!

    [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, marching]




    TROILUS AND CRESSIDA


ACT V



SCENE X    Another part of the plains.


    [Enter AENEAS and Trojans]

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, dragg'd 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 call'd,
    Go in to 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.

    [Exeunt AENEAS and Trojans]

    [As TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other
    side, PANDARUS]

PANDARUS    But hear you, hear you!

TROILUS    Hence, broker-lackey! ignomy and shame
    Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name!

    [Exit]

PANDARUS    A goodly medicine for my 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 loved 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 pander'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 bequeathe you my diseases.

    [Exit]