Troilus and Cressida

By William Shakespeare.

Imprint

This ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.

This particular ebook is based on a transcription from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on digital scans from the HathiTrust Digital Library.

The source text and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. They may still be copyrighted in other countries, so users located outside of the United States must check their local laws before using this ebook. The creators of, and contributors to, this ebook dedicate their contributions to the worldwide public domain via the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. For full license information, see the Uncopyright at the end of this ebook.

Standard Ebooks is a volunteer-driven project that produces ebook editions of public domain literature using modern typography, technology, and editorial standards, and distributes them free of cost. You can download this and other ebooks carefully produced for true book lovers at standardebooks.org.

Dramatis Personae

Priam, King of Troy

Hector, his son

Troilus, his son

Paris, his son

Deiphobus, his son

Helenus, his son

Margarelon, a bastard son of Priam

Aeneas, Trojan commander

Antenor, Trojan commander

Calchas, a Trojan priest, taking part with the Greeks

Pandarus, uncle to Cressida

Agamemnon, the Grecian general

Menelaus, his brother

Achilles, Grecian Prince

Ajax, Grecian Prince

Ulysses, Grecian Prince

Nestor, Grecian Prince

Diomedes, Grecian Prince

Patroclus, Grecian Prince

Thersites, a deformed and scurrilous Grecian

Alexander, servant to Cressida

Servant to Troilus

Servant to Paris

Servant to Diomedes

Helen, wife to Menelaus

Andromache, wife to Hector

Cassandra, daughter to Priam, a prophetess

Cressida, daughter to Calchas

Trojan and Greek soldiers, and attendants

Scene: Troy, and the Grecian camp before it.

Troilus and Cressida

Prologue

In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chafed,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war: sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
The ravish’d Helen, Menelaus’ queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps; and that’s the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come;
And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their warlike fraughtage: now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam’s six-gated city,
Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,
And Antenorides, with massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperr up the sons of Troy.
Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard: and hither am I come
A prologue arm’d, but not in confidence
Of author’s pen or actor’s voice, but suited
In like conditions as our argument,
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o’er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle, starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.
Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are:
Now good or bad, ’tis but the chance of war.

Act I

Scene I

Troy. Before Priam’s palace.

Enter Troilus armed, and Pandarus.

Troilus

Call here my varlet; I’ll unarm again:
Why should I war without the walls of Troy,
That find such cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan that is master of his heart,
Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.

Pandarus
Will this gear ne’er be mended?

Troilus

The Greeks are strong and skilful to their strength,
Fierce to their skill and to their fierceness valiant;
But I am weaker than a woman’s tear,
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
Less valiant than the virgin in the night
And skilless as unpractised infancy.

Pandarus
Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part, I’ll not meddle nor make no further. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.

Troilus
Have I not tarried?

Pandarus
Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.

Troilus
Have I not tarried?

Pandarus
Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leavening.

Troilus
Still have I tarried.

Pandarus
Ay, to the leavening; but here’s yet in the word “hereafter” the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.

Troilus

Patience herself, what goddess e’er she be,
Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do.
At Priam’s royal table do I sit;
And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts⁠—
So, traitor! “When she comes!” When is she thence?

Pandarus
Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else.

Troilus

I was about to tell thee:⁠—when my heart,
As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,
Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile:
But sorrow, that is couch’d in seeming gladness,
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

Pandarus
An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen’s⁠—well, go to⁠—there were no more comparison between the women: but, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her: but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra’s wit, but⁠—

Troilus

O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus⁠—
When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown’d,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrench’d. I tell thee I am mad
In Cressid’s love: thou answer’st “she is fair;”
Pour’st in the open ulcer of my heart
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,
Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink,
Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure
The cygnet’s down is harsh and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell’st me,
As true thou tell’st me, when I say I love her;
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay’st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.

Pandarus
I speak no more than truth.

Troilus
Thou dost not speak so much.

Pandarus
Faith, I’ll not meddle in’t. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, ’tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.

Troilus
Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus!

Pandarus
I have had my labour for my travail; ill-thought on of her and ill-thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour.

Troilus
What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me?

Pandarus
Because she’s kin to me, therefore she’s not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a black-a-moor; ’tis all one to me.

Troilus
Say I she is not fair?

Pandarus
I do not care whether you do or no. She’s a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so I’ll tell her the next time I see her: for my part, I’ll meddle nor make no more i’ the matter.

Troilus
Pandarus⁠—

Pandarus
Not I.

Troilus
Sweet Pandarus⁠—

Pandarus
Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. Exit Pandarus. An alarum.

Troilus

Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!
Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starved a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus⁠—O gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he’s as tetchy to be woo’d to woo,
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne’s love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium and where she resides,
Let it be call’d the wild and wandering flood,
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark.

Alarum. Enter Aeneas.

Aeneas
How now, Prince Troilus! wherefore not afield?

Troilus

Because not there: this woman’s answer sorts,
For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, Aeneas, from the field to-day?

Aeneas
That Paris is returned home and hurt.

Troilus
By whom, Aeneas?

Aeneas
Troilus, by Menelaus.

Troilus

Let Paris bleed: ’tis but a scar to scorn;
Paris is gored with Menelaus’ horn. Alarum.

Aeneas
Hark, what good sport is out of town to-day!

Troilus

Better at home, if “would I might” were “may.”
But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither?

Aeneas
In all swift haste.

Troilus
Come, go we then together. Exeunt.

Scene 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 Troy, whosoever, and a proper man of person. When comes Troilus? I’ll show you Troilus anon: if he see me, you shall see him nod at me.

Cressida
Will he give you the nod?

Pandarus
You shall see.

Cressida
If he do, the rich shall have more.

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.

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 axletree
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 check to good and bad: but when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!
Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
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 pure, transcends.

Agamemnon
Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Aeneas?

Aeneas
Ay, Greek, that is my name.

Agamemnon
What’s your affair, I pray you?

Aeneas
Sir, pardon; ’tis for Agamemnon’s ears.

Agamemnon
He hears nought privately that comes from Troy.

Aeneas

Nor I from Troy come not to whisper him:
I bring a trumpet to awake his ear,
To set his sense on the attentive bent,
And then to speak.

Agamemnon

Speak frankly as the wind;
It is not Agamemnon’s sleeping hour:
That thou shalt know, Trojan, he is awake,
He tells thee so himself.

Aeneas

Trumpet, blow loud,
Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;
And every Greek of mettle, let him know,
What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud. 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 forth 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.

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 tenour of the proclamation, and he rails upon me.

Thersites
I serve thee not.

Ajax
Well, go to, go to.

Thersites
I serve here voluntary.

Achilles
Your last service was sufferance, ’twas not voluntary: no man is beaten voluntary: Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.

Thersites
E’en so; a great deal of your wit, too, lies in your sinews, or else there be liars. Hector 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.

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.

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.

Reenter 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.

Reenter 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.

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 afield 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.

Scene II

The same. Pandarus’ orchard.

Enter Pandarus and Troilus’ 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.

Reenter 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.

Reenter 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 cherubins; they never see truly.

Cressida
Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: to fear the worst oft cures the worse.

Troilus
O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid’s pageant there is presented no monster.

Cressida
Nor nothing monstrous neither?

Troilus
Nothing, but our undertakings; when we vow to weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our mistress to devise imposition enough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed. This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the will is infinite and the execution confined, that the desire is boundless and the act a slave to limit.

Cressida
They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able and yet reserve an ability that they never perform, vowing more than the perfection of ten and discharging less than the tenth part of one. They that have the voice of lions and the act of hares, are they not monsters?

Troilus
Are there such? such are not we: praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go bare till merit crown it: no perfection in reversion shall have a praise in present: we will not name desert before his birth, and, being born, his addition shall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst shall be a mock for his truth, and what truth can speak truest not truer than Troilus.

Cressida
Will you walk in, my lord?

Reenter 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.

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, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin.

Achilles
Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

Thersites
Who, I? why, he’ll answer nobody; he professes not answering: speaking is for beggars; he wears his tongue in’s arms. I will put on his presence: let Patroclus make 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.

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 sympathise: 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.

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.

Reenter 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!

Reenter 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 I beseech you, what’s the matter?

Pandarus
Thou must be gone, wench, thou must be gone; thou art changed for Antenor: thou must to thy father, and be gone from Troilus: ’twill be his death; ’twill be his bane; he cannot bear it.

Cressida
O you immortal gods! I will not go.

Pandarus
Thou must.

Cressida

I will not, uncle: I have forgot my father;
I know no touch of consanguinity;
No kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me
As the sweet Troilus. O you gods divine!
Make Cressid’s name the very crown of falsehood,
If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,
Do to this body what 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.

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.

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 temporise 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 Cressid, and thy life shall be as safe
As Priam is in Ilion.

Diomedes

Fair Lady Cressid,
So please you, save the thanks this prince expects:
The lustre in your eye, heaven in your cheek,
Pleads your fair usage; and to Diomed
You shall be mistress, and command him wholly.

Troilus

Grecian, thou dost not use me courteously,
To shame the zeal of my petition to thee
In praising her: I tell thee, lord of Greece,
She is as far high-soaring o’er thy praises
As thou unworthy to be 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.

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.

Reenter 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’ld 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 I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much,
After we part from Agamemnon’s tent,
To bring me thither?

Ulysses

You shall command me, sir.
As gentle tell me, of what honour was
This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there
That wails her absence?

Troilus

O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars
A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord?
She was beloved, she loved; she is, and doth:
But still sweet love is food for fortune’s tooth. Exeunt.

Act 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 ear-wax: 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. Hoy-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.

Reenter 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.

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.

Reenter 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.

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.

Reenter 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 afield;
And I do stand engaged to many Greeks,
Even in the faith of valour, to appear
This morning to them.

Priam
Ay, but thou shalt not go.

Hector

I must not break my faith.
You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir,
Let me not shame respect; but give me leave
To take that course by your consent and voice,
Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.

Cassandra
O Priam, yield not to him!

Andromache
Do not, dear father.

Hector

Andromache, I am offended with you:
Upon the love you bear me, get you in. Exit Andromache.

Troilus

This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl
Makes all these bodements.

Cassandra

O, farewell, dear Hector!
Look, how thou diest! look, how thy eye turns pale!
Look, how thy wounds do bleed at many vents!
Hark, how Troy roars! how Hecuba cries out!
How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth!
Behold, distraction, frenzy and amazement,
Like witless antics, one another meet,
And all cry, Hector! Hector’s dead! O Hector!

Troilus
Away! away!

Cassandra

Farewell: yet, soft! Hector, I take my leave:
Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive. Exit.

Hector

You are amazed, my liege, at her exclaim:
Go in and cheer the town: we’ll forth and fight,
Do deeds worth praise and tell you them at night.

Priam
Farewell: the gods with safety stand about thee! Exeunt 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.

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.

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.

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!

Reenter 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Colophon

Troilus and Cressida
was published in 1601 by
William Shakespeare.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Emma Sweeney,
and is based on a transcription produced in 1993 by
Jeremy Hylton
for the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and on digital scans from the
HathiTrust Digital Library.

The cover page is adapted from
Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus,
a painting completed in 1800 by
An Unknown Artist.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

This edition was released on
February 4, 2026, 8:17 p.m.
and is based on
revision 44e313f.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
September 11, 2022, 5:32 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/william-shakespeare/troilus-and-cressida.

The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org.

Uncopyright

May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.

Copyright pages exist to tell you that you can’t do something. Unlike them, this Uncopyright page exists to tell you that the writing and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. The United States public domain represents our collective cultural heritage, and items in it are free for anyone in the United States to do almost anything at all with, without having to get permission.

Copyright laws are different all over the world, and the source text or artwork in this ebook may still be copyrighted in other countries. If you’re not located in the United States, you must check your local laws before using this ebook. Standard Ebooks makes no representations regarding the copyright status of the source text or artwork in this ebook in any country other than the United States.

Non-authorship activities performed on items that are in the public domain⁠—so-called “sweat of the brow” work⁠—don’t create a new copyright. That means that nobody can claim a new copyright on an item that is in the public domain for, among other things, work like digitization, markup, or typography. Regardless, the contributors to this ebook release their contributions under the terms in the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, thus dedicating to the worldwide public domain all of the work they’ve done on this ebook, including but not limited to metadata, the titlepage, imprint, colophon, this Uncopyright, and any changes or enhancements to, or markup on, the original text and artwork. This dedication doesn’t change the copyright status of the source text or artwork. We make this dedication in the interest of enriching our global cultural heritage, to promote free and libre culture around the world, and to give back to the unrestricted culture that has given all of us so much.