Troilus and Cressida

by William Shakespeare

Dramatis Personae

• Priam - king of Troy
• Cassandra - Priam’s daughter, a soothsayer
• Troilus - (Priam’s sons)
• Hector - (Priam’s sons)
• Paris - (Priam’s sons)
• Helenus - (Priam’s sons)
• Deiphobus - (Priam’s sons)
• Bastard - (Priam’s sons)
• Andromache - Hector’s wife
• Aeneas - (Trojan leaders)
• Antenor - (Trojan leaders)
• Troilus’s Boy
• Troilus’s Man
• Paris’s Servingman
• Cressida
• Calchas - her father
• Pandarus - her uncle
• Alexander - her servant
• Agamemnon - the general (Greek leaders)
• Nestor - (Greek leaders)
• Ulysses - (Greek leaders)
• Diomedes - (Greek leaders)
• Menelaus - brother to Agamemnon (Greek leaders)
• Ajax - (Greek leaders)
• Achilles - (Greek leaders)
• Helen - Menelaus’s wife and queen
• Patroclus - Achilles’ favorite companion
• A Myrmidon
• Thersites - cynical critic
• Diomedes’ Servingman
• Soldiers

Act 1

Scene 1

Enter Pandarus and Troilus.

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 unpracticed infancy.

Pandarus:¶Well, I have told you enough of this. For my part, I’ll not meddle nor make no farther. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must 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 the oven, and the baking. Nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance burn your lips.

Troilus:¶Patience herself, what goddess e’er she be, Doth lesser blench at suff’rance than I do. At Priam’s royal table do I sit And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts— So, traitor! "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 wedgèd with a sigh, would rive in twain, Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, I have, as when the sun doth light a-scorn, Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile; But sorrow that is couched in seeming gladness Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

Pandarus:¶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 drowned, Reply not in how many fathoms deep They lie indrenched. I tell thee I am mad In Cressid’s love. Thou answer’st she is fair; Pourest in the open ulcer of my heart Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice; Handiest 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 plowman. 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 it. 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 labor for my travail, ill thought on of her, and ill thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my labor.

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 o’ Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a blackamoor; ’tis all one to me.

Troilus:¶Say I she is not fair?

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

Troilus:¶Pandarus—

Pandarus:¶Not I.

Troilus:¶Sweet Pandarus—

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

He exits.

Sound alarum.

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

Alarum. Enter Aeneas.

Aeneas:¶How now, Prince Troilus? Wherefore not afield?

Troilus:¶Because not there. This woman’s answer sorts, For womanish it is to be from thence. What news, Aeneas, from the field today?

Aeneas:¶That Paris is returnèd home, and hurt.

Troilus:¶By whom, Aeneas?

Aeneas:¶Troilus, by Menelaus.

Troilus:¶Let Paris bleed. ’Tis but a scar to scorn; Paris is gored with Menelaus’ horn.

Alarum.

Aeneas:¶Hark what good sport is out of town today!

Troilus:¶Better at home, if "would I might" were "may." But to the sport abroad. Are you bound thither?

Aeneas:¶In all swift haste.

Troilus:¶Come, go we then together.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Cressida and her man Alexander.

Cressida:¶Who were those went by?

Alexander:¶Queen Hecuba and Helen.

Cressida:¶And whither go they?

Alexander:¶Up to the eastern tower, Whose height commands as subject all the vale, To see the battle. Hector, whose patience Is as a virtue fixed, today was moved. He chid Andromache and struck his armorer; And, like as there were husbandry in war, Before the sun rose he was harnessed light, And to the field goes he, where every flower Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw In Hector’s wrath.

Cressida:¶What was his cause of anger?

Alexander:¶The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector. They call him Ajax.

Cressida:¶Good; and what of him?

Alexander:¶They say he is a very man per se And stands alone.

Cressida:¶So do all men unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

Alexander:¶This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions. He is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant, a man into whom nature hath so crowded humors that his valor 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 everything, but everything so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

Cressida:¶But how should this man that makes me smile make Hector angry?

Alexander:¶They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle and struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.

Enter Pandarus.

Cressida:¶Who comes here?

Alexander:¶Madam, your Uncle Pandarus.

Cressida:¶Hector’s a gallant man.

Alexander:¶As may be in the world, lady.

Pandarus:¶What’s that? What’s that?

Cressida:¶Good morrow, Uncle Pandarus.

Pandarus:¶Good morrow, Cousin Cressid. What do you talk of?— Good morrow, Alexander.—How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?

Cressida:¶This morning, uncle.

Pandarus:¶What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector armed and gone ere you came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?

Cressida:¶Hector was gone, but Helen was not up.

Pandarus:¶E’en so. Hector was stirring early.

Cressida:¶That were we talking of, and of his anger.

Pandarus:¶Was he angry?

Cressida:¶So he says here.

Pandarus:¶True, he was so. I know the cause too. He’ll lay about him today, I can tell them that; and there’s Troilus will not come far behind him. Let them take heed of Troilus, I can tell them that too.

Cressida:¶What, is he angry too?

Pandarus:¶Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.

Cressida:¶O Jupiter, there’s no comparison.

Pandarus:¶What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man if you see him?

Cressida:¶Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him.

Pandarus:¶Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.

Cressida:¶Then you say as I say, for I am sure he is not Hector.

Pandarus:¶No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees.

Cressida:¶’Tis just to each of them; he is himself.

Pandarus:¶Himself? Alas, poor Troilus, I would he were.

Cressida:¶So he is.

Pandarus:¶Condition I had gone barefoot to India.

Cressida:¶He is not Hector.

Pandarus:¶Himself? No, he’s not himself. Would he 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 favor— 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 color 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 color 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’ th’ shell.

Pandarus:¶I cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his chin. Indeed, she has a marvellous white hand, I must needs confess—

Cressida:¶Without the rack.

Pandarus:¶And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.

Cressida:¶Alas, poor chin! Many a wart is richer.

Pandarus:¶But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laughed that her eyes ran o’er—

Cressida:¶With millstones.

Pandarus:¶And Cassandra laughed—

Cressida:¶But there was a more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes. Did her eyes run o’er too?

Pandarus:¶And Hector laughed.

Cressida:¶At what was all this laughing?

Pandarus:¶Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus’ chin.

Cressida:¶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, and Paris so chafed, and all the rest so laughed that it passed.

Cressida:¶So let it now, for it has been a great while going by.

Pandarus:¶Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday. Think on ’t.

Cressida:¶So I do.

Pandarus:¶I’ll be sworn ’tis true. He will weep you an ’twere a man born in April.

Cressida:¶And I’ll spring up in his tears an ’twere a nettle against May.

Sound a retreat.

Pandarus:¶Hark, they are coming from the field. Shall we stand up here and see them as they pass toward Ilium? Good niece, do, sweet niece Cressida.

Cressida:¶At your pleasure.

Pandarus:¶Here, here, here’s an excellent place. Here we may see most bravely. I’ll tell you them all by their names as they pass by, but mark Troilus above the rest.

They cross the stage; Alexander exits.

Cressida:¶Speak not so loud.

Enter Aeneas and crosses the stage.

Pandarus:¶That’s Aeneas. Is not that a brave man? He’s one of the flowers of Troy, I can tell you. But mark Troilus; you shall see anon.

Enter Antenor and crosses the stage.

Cressida:¶Who’s that?

Pandarus:¶That’s Antenor. He has a shrewd wit, I can tell you, and he’s a man good enough. He’s one o’ th’ soundest 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.

Enter Hector and crosses the stage.

Pandarus:¶That’s Hector, that, that, look you, that. There’s a fellow!—Go thy way, Hector!—There’s a brave man, niece. O brave Hector! Look how he looks. There’s a countenance! Is ’t not a brave man?

Cressida:¶O, a brave man!

Pandarus:¶Is he not? It does a man’s heart good. Look you what hacks are on his helmet. Look you yonder, do you see? Look you there. There’s no jesting; there’s laying on, take ’t off who will, as they say. There be hacks.

Cressida:¶Be those with swords?

Pandarus:¶Swords, anything, he cares not. An the devil come to him, it’s all one. By God’s lid, it does one’s heart good. [Enter Paris and crosses the stage.] Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris! Look you yonder, niece. Is ’t not a gallant man too? Is ’t not? Why, this is brave now. Who said he came hurt home today? He’s not hurt. Why, this will do Helen’s heart good now, ha? Would I could see Troilus now! You shall see Troilus anon.

Enter Helenus and crosses the stage.

Cressida:¶Who’s that?

Pandarus:¶That’s Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That’s Helenus. I think he went not forth today. That’s Helenus.

Cressida:¶Can Helenus fight, uncle?

Pandarus:¶Helenus? No. Yes, he’ll fight indifferent well. I marvel where Troilus is. Hark, do you not hear the people cry "Troilus"? Helenus is a priest.

Enter Troilus and crosses the stage.

Cressida:¶What sneaking fellow comes yonder?

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 never saw three and twenty.—Go thy way, Troilus; go thy way!—Had I a sister were a Grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris is dirt to him; and I warrant Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot.

Enter Common Soldiers and cross the stage.

Cressida:¶Here comes more.

Pandarus:¶Asses, fools, dolts, chaff and bran, chaff and bran, porridge after meat. I could live and die in 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 amongst 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 is out.

Pandarus:¶You are such a woman a man knows not at what ward you lie.

Cressida:¶Upon my back to defend my belly, upon my wit to defend my wiles, upon my secrecy to defend mine honesty, my mask to defend my beauty, and you to defend all these; and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand watches.

Pandarus:¶Say one of your watches.

Cressida:¶Nay, I’ll watch you for that, and that’s one of the chiefest of them too. If I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow—unless it swell past hiding, and then it’s past watching.

Pandarus:¶You are such another!

Enter Troilus’s Boy.

Troilus’s Boy:¶Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.

Pandarus:¶Where?

Troilus’s Boy:¶At your own house. There he unarms him.

Pandarus:¶Good boy, tell him I come. [Boy exits.] I doubt he be hurt.—Fare you well, good niece.

Cressida:¶Adieu, uncle.

Pandarus:¶I will 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. [Pandarus exits.] Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love’s full sacrifice He offers in another’s enterprise; But more in Troilus thousandfold I see Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be. Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing; Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing. That she beloved knows naught that knows not this: Men prize the thing ungained more than it is. That she was never yet that ever knew Love got so sweet as when desire did sue. Therefore this maxim out of love I teach: Achievement is command; ungained, beseech. Then though my heart’s content firm love doth bear, Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

She exits.

Scene 3

Sennet. Enter Agamemnon, Nestor, Ulysses, Diomedes, Menelaus, with others.

Agamemnon:¶Princes, what grief hath set the jaundice o’er your cheeks? The ample proposition that hope makes In all designs begun on Earth below Fails in the promised largeness. Checks and disasters Grow in the veins of actions highest reared, As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, Infects the sound pine and diverts his grain Tortive and errant from his course of growth. Nor, princes, is it matter new to us That we come short of our suppose so far That after seven years’ siege yet Troy walls stand, Sith every action that hath gone before, Whereof we have record, trial did draw Bias and thwart, not answering the aim And that unbodied figure of the thought That gave ’t surmisèd shape. Why then, you princes, Do you with cheeks abashed behold our works And call them shames, which are indeed naught 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-ribbed bark through liquid mountains cut, Bounding between the two moist elements, Like Perseus’ horse. Where’s then the saucy boat Whose weak untimbered sides but even now Corrivaled greatness? Either to harbor fled Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so Doth valor’s show and valor’s worth divide In storms of Fortune. For in her ray and brightness The herd hath more annoyance by the breese Than by the tiger, but when the splitting wind Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks, And flies flee 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, nerves and bone of Greece, Heart of our numbers, soul and only sprite, In whom the tempers and the minds of all Should be shut up, hear what Ulysses speaks. Besides th’ applause and approbation, The which, [(to Agamemnon)] most mighty for thy place and sway, [(To Nestor)] And thou most reverend for thy stretched-out life, I give to both your speeches, which were such As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece Should hold up high in brass; and such again As venerable Nestor, hatched in silver, Should with a bond of air, strong as the 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 lacked a master But for these instances: The specialty of rule hath been neglected, And look how many Grecian tents do stand Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions. When that the general is not like the hive To whom the foragers shall all repair, What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded, Th’ unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom, in all line of order. And therefore is the glorious planet Sol In noble eminence enthroned and sphered Amidst the other, whose med’cinable eye Corrects the influence of evil planets, 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 fixture! O, when degree is shaked, Which is the ladder of all high designs, The enterprise is sick. How could communities, Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogeneity and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, scepters, laurels, But by degree stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And hark what discord follows. Each thing meets In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores And make a sop of all this solid globe; Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead; Force should be right, or, rather, right and wrong, Between whose endless jar justice resides, Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then everything includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite, And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, This chaos, when degree is suffocate, Follows the choking. And this neglection of degree it is That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose It hath to climb. The General’s disdained By him one step below, he by the next, 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 discovered The fever whereof all our power is sick.

Agamemnon:¶The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses, What is the remedy?

Ulysses:¶The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns The sinew and the forehand of our host, Having his ear full of his airy fame, Grows dainty of his worth and in his tent Lies mocking our designs. With him Patroclus, Upon a lazy bed, the live-long day Breaks scurril jests, And with ridiculous and silly action, Which, slanderer, he imitation calls, He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon, Thy topless deputation he puts on, And, like a strutting player whose conceit Lies in his hamstring and doth think it rich To hear the wooden dialogue and sound ’Twixt his stretched footing and the scaffollage, Such to-be-pitied and o’erwrested seeming He acts thy greatness in; and when he speaks, ’Tis like a chime a-mending, with terms unsquared Which from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropped Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff, The large Achilles, on his pressed bed lolling, From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause, Cries "Excellent! ’Tis Agamemnon right. Now play me Nestor; hem and stroke thy beard, As he being dressed to some oration." That’s done, as near as the extremest ends Of parallels, as like as Vulcan and his wife; Yet god Achilles still cries "Excellent! ’Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus, Arming to answer in a night alarm." And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age Must be the scene of mirth—to cough and spit, And, with a palsy fumbling on his gorget, Shake in and out the rivet. And at this sport Sir Valor dies, cries "O, enough, Patroclus, Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all In pleasure of my spleen." And in this fashion, All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes, Severals and generals of grace exact, Achievements, plots, orders, preventions, Excitements to the field, or speech for truce, Success or loss, what is or is not, serves As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.

Nestor:¶And in the imitation of these twain, Who, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns With an imperial voice, many are infect: Ajax is grown self-willed and bears his head In such a rein, in full as proud a place As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him, Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war, Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites— A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint— To match us in comparisons with dirt, To weaken and discredit our exposure, How rank soever rounded in with danger.

Ulysses:¶They tax our policy and call it cowardice, Count wisdom as no member of the war, Forestall prescience, and esteem no act But that of hand. The still and mental parts That do contrive how many hands shall strike When fitness calls them on and know by measure Of their observant toil the enemy’s weight— Why, this hath not a fingers dignity. They call this bed-work, mapp’ry, closet war; So that the ram that batters down the wall, For the great swinge and rudeness of his poise, They place before his hand that made the engine Or those that with the fineness of their souls By reason guide his execution.

Nestor:¶Let this be granted, and Achilles’ horse Makes many Thetis’ sons.

Tucket.

Agamemnon:¶What trumpet? Look, Menelaus.

Menelaus:¶From Troy.

Enter Aeneas, with a Trumpeter.

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 eyes?

Agamemnon:¶With surety stronger than Achilles’ arm ’Fore all the Greekish host, which with one voice Call Agamemnon head and general.

Aeneas:¶Fair leave and large security. How may A stranger to those most imperial looks Know them from eyes of other mortals?

Agamemnon:¶How?

Aeneas:¶Ay. I ask that I might waken reverence And bid the cheek be ready with a blush Modest as morning when she coldly eyes The youthful Phoebus. Which is that god in office, guiding men? Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?

Agamemnon:¶This Trojan scorns us, or the men of Troy Are ceremonious courtiers.

Aeneas:¶Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarmed, As bending angels—that’s their fame in peace. But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls, Good arms, strong joints, true swords, and—great 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 naught privately that comes from Troy.

Aeneas:¶Nor I from Troy come not to whisper with 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. [Sound trumpet.] We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy A prince called Hector—Priam is his father— Who in this dull and long-continued truce Is resty 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 honor higher than his ease, That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril, That knows his valor 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 couple in his arms And will tomorrow with his trumpet call, Midway between your tents and walls of Troy, To rouse a Grecian that is true in love. If any come, Hector shall honor 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:¶[to Aeneas] Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man When Hector’s grandsire sucked. He is old now, But if there be not in our Grecian host A 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 vambrace put my withered brawns 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 troth with my three drops of blood.

Aeneas:¶Now heavens forfend 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.

All but Ulysses and Nestor exit.

Ulysses:¶Nestor.

Nestor:¶What says Ulysses?

Ulysses:¶I have a young conception in my brain; Be you my time to bring it to some shape.

Nestor:¶What is ’t?

Ulysses:¶This ’tis: Blunt wedges rive hard knots; the seeded pride That hath to this maturity blown up In rank Achilles must or now be cropped Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil To overbulk us all.

Nestor:¶Well, and how?

Ulysses:¶This challenge that the gallant Hector sends, However it is spread in general name, Relates in purpose only to Achilles.

Nestor:¶True. The purpose is perspicuous 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:¶Why, ’tis most meet. Who may you else oppose That can from Hector bring his honor off If not Achilles? Though ’t be a sportful combat, Yet in the trial much opinion dwells, For here the Trojans taste our dear’st repute With their fin’st palate. And, trust to me, Ulysses, Our imputation shall be oddly poised In this vile action. For the success, Although particular, shall give a scantling Of good or bad unto the general; And in such indexes, although small pricks To their subsequent volumes, there is seen The baby figure of the giant mass Of things to come at large. It is supposed He that meets Hector issues from our choice; And choice, being mutual act of all our souls, Makes merit her election and doth boil, As ’twere from forth us all, a man distilled Out of our virtues, who, miscarrying, What heart receives from hence a conquering part To steel a strong opinion to themselves?— Which entertained, limbs are his instruments, In no less working than are swords and bows Directive by the limbs.

Ulysses:¶Give pardon to my speech: therefore ’tis meet Achilles meet not Hector. Let us like merchants First show foul wares and think perchance they’ll sell; If not, the luster of the better shall exceed By showing the worse first. Do not consent That ever Hector and Achilles meet, For both our honor and our shame in this Are dogged with two strange followers.

Nestor:¶I see them not with my old eyes. What are they?

Ulysses:¶What glory our Achilles shares from Hector, Were he not proud, we all should share with him; But he already is too insolent, And it were better parch in Afric sun Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes Should he scape Hector fair. If he were foiled, Why then we do our main opinion crush In taint of our best man. No, make a lott’ry, And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw The sort to fight with Hector. Among ourselves Give him allowance 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 employed plucks down Achilles’ plumes.

Nestor:¶Now, Ulysses, I begin to relish thy advice, And I will give a taste thereof forthwith To Agamemnon. Go we to him straight. Two curs shall tame each other; pride alone Must tar the mastiffs on, as ’twere a bone.

They exit.

Act 2

Scene 1

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 there would come some matter from him. I see none now.

Ajax:¶Thou bitchwolf’s son, canst thou not hear? Feel, then.

Strikes him.

Thersites:¶The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!

Ajax:¶Speak, then, thou unsalted 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 Proserpina’s beauty, ay, that thou bark’st at him.

Ajax:¶Mistress Thersites!

Thersites:¶Thou shouldst strike him—

Ajax:¶Cobloaf!

Thersites:¶He would pound thee into shivers with his fist as a sailor breaks a biscuit.

Ajax:¶You whoreson cur!

Strikes him.

Thersites:¶Do, do.

Ajax:¶Thou stool for a witch!

Thersites:¶Ay, do, do, thou sodden-witted lord. Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows; an asinego may tutor thee, thou scurvy-valiant ass. Thou art here but to thrash Trojans, and thou art bought and sold among those of any wit, like a barbarian slave. If thou use to beat me, I will begin at thy heel and tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no bowels, thou.

Ajax:¶You dog!

Thersites:¶You scurvy lord!

Ajax:¶You cur!

Strikes him.

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, so I do.

Thersites:¶But yet you look not well upon him, for whosomever you take him to be, he is Ajax.

Achilles:¶I know that, fool.

Thersites:¶Ay, but that fool knows not himself.

Ajax:¶Therefore I beat thee.

Thersites:¶Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! His evasions have ears thus long. I have bobbed his brain more than he has beat my bones. I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the ninth part of a sparrow. This lord, Achilles—Ajax, who wears his wit in his belly, and his guts in his head—I’ll tell you what I say of him.

Achilles:¶What?

Thersites:¶I say, this Ajax—

Ajax menaces him.

Achilles:¶Nay, good Ajax.

Thersites:¶Has not so much wit—

Achilles:¶[to Ajax] 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. The fool’s will shame it.

Patroclus:¶Good words, Thersites.

Achilles:¶[to Ajax] What’s the quarrel?

Ajax:¶I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenor of the proclamation, and he rails upon me.

Thersites:¶I serve thee not.

Ajax:¶Well, go to, go to.

Thersites:¶I serve here voluntary.

Achilles:¶Your last service was suff’rance; ’twas not voluntary. No man is beaten voluntary. Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.

Thersites:¶E’en so. A great deal of your wit, too, lies in your sinews, or else there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch an he knock out either of your brains; he 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 moldy ere your grandsires had nails on their toes—yoke you like draft-oxen and make you plow 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 clodpolls ere I come any more to your tents. I will keep where there is wit stirring and leave the faction of fools.

He exits.

Patroclus:¶A good riddance.

Achilles:¶[to Ajax] Marry, this, sir, is proclaimed through all our host: That Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun, Will with a trumpet ’twixt our tents and Troy Tomorrow morning call some knight to arms That hath a stomach, and such a one that dare Maintain—I know not what; ’tis trash. Farewell.

Ajax:¶Farewell. Who shall answer him?

Achilles:¶I know not. ’Tis put to lott’ry. Otherwise, He knew his man.

Achilles and Patroclus exit.

Ajax:¶O, meaning you? I will go learn more of it.

He exits.

Scene 2

Enter Priam, Hector, Troilus, Paris and Helenas.

Priam:¶After so many hours, lives, speeches spent, Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks: "Deliver Helen, and all damage else— As honor, loss of time, travel, 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 called The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches To th’ bottom of the worst. Let Helen go. Since the first sword was drawn about this question, Every tithe soul, ’mongst many thousand dismes, Hath been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours. If we have lost so many tenths of ours To guard a thing not ours—nor worth to us, Had it our name, the value of one ten— What merit’s in that reason which denies The yielding of her up?

Troilus:¶Fie, fie, my brother, Weigh you the worth and honor of a king So great as our dread father’s 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 reason, Because your speech hath none that tell him so?

Troilus:¶You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest. You fur your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons: You know an enemy intends you harm; You know a sword employed is perilous, And reason flies the object of all harm. Who marvels, then, when Helenus beholds A Grecian and his sword, if he do set The very wings of reason to his heels And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove Or like a star disorbed? Nay, if we talk of reason, Let’s shut our gates and sleep. Manhood and honor Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their thoughts With this crammed reason. Reason and respect Make livers pale and lustihood deject.

Hector:¶Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost The keeping.

Troilus:¶What’s aught but as ’tis valued?

Hector:¶But value dwells not in particular will; It holds his estimate and dignity As well wherein ’tis precious of itself As in the prizer. ’Tis mad idolatry To make the service greater than the god; And the will dotes that is attributive To what infectiously itself affects Without some image of th’ affected merit.

Troilus:¶I take today a wife, and my election Is led on in the conduct of my will— My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears, Two traded pilots ’twixt the dangerous shores Of will and judgment. How may I avoid, Although my will distaste what it elected, The wife I choose? There can be no evasion To blench from this and to stand firm by honor. We turn not back the silks upon the merchant When we have soiled 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 with full consent bellied his sails; The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce And did him service. He touched the ports desired, And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive, He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness Wrinkles Apollo’s and makes pale the morning. Why keep we her? The Grecians keep our aunt. Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships And turned crowned kings to merchants. If you’ll avouch ’twas wisdom Paris went— As you must needs, for you all cried "Go, go"— If you’ll confess he brought home worthy prize— As you must needs, for you all clapped your hands And cried "Inestimable"—why do you now The issue of your proper wisdoms rate And do a deed that never Fortune did, Beggar the estimation which you prized Richer than sea and land? O, theft most base, That we have stol’n what we do fear to keep! But thieves unworthy of a thing so stol’n, That in their country did them that disgrace We fear to warrant in our native place.

Cassandra:¶[within] Cry, Trojans, cry!

Priam:¶What noise? What shriek is this?

Troilus:¶’Tis our mad sister. I do know her voice.

Cassandra:¶[within] Cry, Trojans!

Hector:¶It is Cassandra.

Enter Cassandra 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 elders, Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry, Add to my clamors. Let us pay betimes A moiety of that mass of moan to come. Cry, Trojans, cry! Practice your eyes with tears. Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilium stand. Our firebrand brother Paris burns us all. Cry, Trojans, cry! A Helen and a woe! Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go.

She exits.

Hector:¶Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains Of divination in our sister work Some touches of remorse? Or is your blood So madly hot that no discourse of reason Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause Can qualify the same?

Troilus:¶Why, brother Hector, We may not think the justness of each act Such and no other than event doth form it, Nor once deject the courage of our minds Because Cassandra’s mad. Her brainsick raptures Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel Which hath our several honors all engaged To make it gracious. For my private part, I am no more touched than all Priam’s sons; And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us Such things as might offend the weakest spleen To fight for and maintain!

Paris:¶Else might the world convince of levity As well my undertakings as your counsels. But I attest the gods, your full consent Gave wings to my propension and cut off All fears attending on so dire a project. For what, alas, can these my single arms? What propugnation is in one man’s valor 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 honorable keeping her. What treason were it to the ransacked queen, Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me, Now to deliver her possession up On terms of base compulsion? Can it be That so degenerate a strain as this Should once set footing in your generous bosoms? There’s not the meanest spirit on our party Without a heart to dare or sword to draw When Helen is defended, nor none so noble Whose life were ill bestowed or death unfamed Where Helen is the subject. Then I say, Well may we fight for her whom, we know well, The world’s large spaces cannot parallel.

Hector:¶Paris and Troilus, you have both said well, And on the cause and question now in hand Have glozed—but superficially, not much Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought Unfit to hear moral philosophy. The reasons you allege do more conduce To the hot passion of distempered blood Than to make up a free determination ’Twixt right and wrong, for pleasure and revenge Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice Of any true decision. Nature craves All dues be rendered to their owners. Now, What nearer debt in all humanity Than wife is to the husband? If this law Of nature be corrupted through affection, And that great minds, of partial indulgence To their benumbèd wills, resist the same, There is a law in each well-ordered nation To curb those raging appetites that are Most disobedient and refractory. If Helen, then, be wife to Sparta’s king, As it is known she is, these moral laws Of nature and of nations speak aloud To have her back returned. Thus to persist In doing wrong extenuates not wrong, But makes it much more heavy. Hector’s opinion Is this in way of truth; yet, ne’ertheless, My sprightly brethren, I propend to you In resolution to keep Helen still, For ’tis a cause that hath no mean dependence Upon our joint and several dignities.

Troilus:¶Why, there you touched the life of our design! Were it not glory that we more affected Than the performance of our heaving spleens, I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood Spent more in her defense. But, worthy Hector, She is a theme of honor and renown, A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds, Whose present courage may beat down our foes, And fame in time to come canonize us; For I presume brave Hector would not lose So rich advantage of a promised glory As smiles upon the forehead of this action For the wide world’s revenue.

Hector:¶I am yours, You valiant offspring of great Priamus. I have a roisting challenge sent amongst The dull and factious nobles of the Greeks Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits. I was advertised their great general slept, Whilst emulation in the army crept. This, I presume, will wake him.

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter Thersites, alone.

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 you take not that little, little, less than little wit from them that they have, which short-armed ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider without drawing their massy irons and cutting the web. After this, the vengeance on the whole camp! Or rather, the Neapolitan bone-ache! For that, methinks, is the curse depending on those that war for a placket. I have said my prayers, and devil Envy say "Amen."—What ho, my lord Achilles!

Patroclus:¶[within] Who’s there? Thersites? Good Thersites, come in and rail.

Thersites:¶If I could ’a remembered a gilt counterfeit, thou couldst 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. [Enter Patroclus.] Where’s Achilles?

Patroclus:¶What, art thou devout? Wast thou in prayer?

Thersites:¶Ay. The heavens hear me!

Patroclus:¶Amen.

Achilles:¶[within] Who’s there?

Patroclus:¶Thersites, my lord.

Achilles:¶[within] Where? Where? O, where? [Enter Achilles.] [To Thersites.] 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 Thersites?

Thersites:¶Thy knower, Patroclus. Then, tell me, Patroclus, what art thou?

Patroclus:¶Thou must 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:¶[to Patroclus] 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 this Patroclus is a fool positive.

Patroclus:¶Why am I a fool?

Thersites:¶Make that demand of the creator. It suffices me thou art. [Enter at a distance Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Diomedes, Ajax, and Calchas.] Look you, who comes here?

Achilles:¶Patroclus, I’ll speak with nobody.—Come in with me, Thersites.

He exits.

Thersites:¶Here is such patchery, such juggling, and such knavery. All the argument is a whore and a cuckold, a good quarrel to draw emulous factions and bleed to death upon. Now the dry serpigo on the subject, and war and lechery confound all!

He exits.

Agamemnon:¶[to Patroclus] 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.

He exits.

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 favor the man, but, by my head, ’tis pride. But, why, why? Let him show us a cause.—A word, my lord.

He and Agamemnon walk 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. [Enter Patroclus.] Here comes Patroclus.

Nestor:¶No Achilles with him.

Ulysses:¶The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.

Patroclus:¶[to Agamemnon] Achilles bids me say he is much sorry If anything more than your sport and pleasure Did move your greatness and this noble state To call upon him. He hopes it is no other But for your health and your digestion sake, An after-dinner’s breath.

Agamemnon:¶Hear you, Patroclus: We are too well acquainted with these answers, But his evasion, winged thus swift with scorn, Cannot outfly our apprehensions. Much attribute he hath, and much the reason Why we ascribe it to him. Yet all his virtues, Not virtuously on his own part beheld, Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss, Yea, and 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 overproud And underhonest, 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 course and time, his ebbs and 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.

Agamemnon:¶In second voice we’ll not be satisfied; We come to speak with him.—Ulysses, enter you.

Ulysses exits, with Patroclus.

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:¶[aside] And yet he loves himself. Is ’t not strange?

Enter Ulysses.

Ulysses:¶Achilles will not to the field tomorrow.

Agamemnon:¶What’s his excuse?

Ulysses:¶He doth rely on none, But carries on the stream of his dispose, Without observance or respect of any, In will peculiar and in self-admission.

Agamemnon:¶Why, will he not, upon our fair request, Untent his person and share th’ air with us?

Ulysses:¶Things small as nothing, for request’s sake only, He makes important. Possessed he is with greatness And speaks not to himself but with a pride That quarrels at self-breath. Imagined worth Holds in his blood such swoll’n and hot discourse That ’twixt his mental and his active parts Kingdomed Achilles in commotion rages And batters 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 doth revolve And ruminate himself—shall he be worshipped Of that we hold an idol more than he? No. This thrice-worthy and right valiant lord Shall 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 armèd fist I’ll pash him o’er the face.

Agamemnon:¶O, no, you shall not go.

Ajax:¶An he be proud with me, I’ll feeze his pride. Let me go to him.

Ulysses:¶Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.

Ajax:¶A paltry, insolent fellow.

Nestor:¶[aside] How he describes himself!

Ajax:¶Can he not be sociable?

Ulysses:¶[aside] The raven chides blackness.

Ajax:¶I’ll let his humorous blood.

Agamemnon:¶[aside] He will be the physician that should be the patient.

Ajax:¶An all men were of my mind—

Ulysses:¶[aside] Wit would be out of fashion.

Ajax:¶—he should not bear it so; he should eat swords first. Shall pride carry it?

Nestor:¶[aside] An ’twould, you’d carry half.

Ulysses:¶[aside] He would have ten shares.

Ajax:¶I will knead him; I’ll make him supple.

Nestor:¶[aside] He’s not yet through warm. Force him with praises. Pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry.

Ulysses:¶[to Agamemnon] My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.

Nestor:¶[to Agamemnon] Our noble general, do not do so.

Diomedes:¶[to Agamemnon] 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 palter with us thus! 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:¶[to Ajax] Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure. Praise him that gat thee, she that gave thee suck; Famed be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature Thrice famed beyond, beyond thy erudition; But he that disciplined thine arms to fight, Let Mars divide eternity in twain And give him half; and for thy vigor, Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom, Which like a bourn, a pale, a shore confines Thy spacious and dilated parts. Here’s Nestor, Instructed by the antiquary times; He must, he is, he cannot but be wise.— But pardon, father Nestor, were your days As green as Ajax’ and your brain so tempered, You should not have the eminence of him, But be as Ajax.

Ajax:¶Shall I call you father?

Nestor:¶Ay, my good son.

Diomedes:¶Be ruled by him, Lord Ajax.

Ulysses:¶There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles Keeps thicket. Please it our great general To call together all his state of war. Fresh kings are come to Troy. Tomorrow We must with all our main of power stand fast. And here’s a lord—come knights from east to west And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.

Agamemnon:¶Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep. Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.

They exit.

Act 3

Scene 1

Music sounds within. Enter Pandarus and Paris’s Servingman.

Pandarus:¶Friend, you, pray you, a word. Do you not follow the young Lord Paris?

Paris’s Servingman:¶Ay, sir, when he goes before me.

Pandarus:¶You depend upon him, I mean.

Paris’s Servingman:¶Sir, I do depend upon the Lord.

Pandarus:¶You depend upon a notable gentleman. I must needs praise him.

Paris’s Servingman:¶The Lord be praised!

Pandarus:¶You know me, do you not?

Paris’s Servingman:¶Faith, sir, superficially.

Pandarus:¶Friend, know me better. I am the Lord Pandarus.

Paris’s Servingman:¶I hope I shall know your Honor better.

Pandarus:¶I do desire it.

Paris’s Servingman:¶You are in the state of grace?

Pandarus:¶Grace? Not so, friend. "Honor" and "Lordship" are my titles. What music is this?

Paris’s Servingman:¶I do but partly know, sir. It is music in parts.

Pandarus:¶Know you the musicians?

Paris’s Servingman:¶Wholly, sir.

Pandarus:¶Who play they to?

Paris’s Servingman:¶To the hearers, sir.

Pandarus:¶At whose pleasure, friend?

Paris’s Servingman:¶At mine, sir, and theirs that love music.

Pandarus:¶Command, I mean, friend.

Paris’s Servingman:¶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?

Paris’s Servingman:¶That’s to ’t indeed, sir. Marry, sir, at the request of Paris my lord, who is there in person; with him the mortal Venus, the heart blood of beauty, love’s visible soul.

Pandarus:¶Who, my cousin Cressida?

Paris’s Servingman:¶No, sir, Helen. Could not you find out that by her attributes?

Pandarus:¶It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the Lady Cressid. I come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troilus. I will make a complimental assault upon him, for my business seethes.

Paris’s Servingman:¶Sodden business! There’s a stewed phrase indeed.

Enter Paris and Helen with Attendants.

Pandarus:¶Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company! Fair desires in all fair measure fairly guide them!—Especially to you, fair queen, fair thoughts be your fair pillow!

Helen:¶Dear lord, you are full of fair words.

Pandarus:¶You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen.—Fair prince, here is good broken music.

Paris:¶You have broke it, cousin, and, by my life, you shall make it whole again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your performance.

Helen:¶He is full of harmony.

Pandarus:¶Truly, lady, no.

Helen:¶O, sir—

Pandarus:¶Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude.

Paris:¶Well said, my lord; well, you say so in fits.

Pandarus:¶I have business to my lord, dear queen.— My lord, will you vouchsafe me a word?

Helen:¶Nay, this shall not hedge us out. We’ll hear you sing, certainly.

Pandarus:¶Well, sweet queen, you are pleasant with me.—But, marry, thus, my lord: my dear lord and most esteemed friend, your brother Troilus—

Helen:¶My Lord Pandarus, honey-sweet lord—

Pandarus:¶Go to, sweet queen, go to—commends himself most affectionately to you—

Helen:¶You shall not bob us out of our melody. If you do, our melancholy upon your head!

Pandarus:¶Sweet queen, sweet queen, that’s a sweet queen, i’ faith—

Helen:¶And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.

Pandarus:¶Nay, that shall not serve your turn, that shall it not, in truth, la. Nay, I care not for such words, no, no.—And, my lord, he desires you that if the King call for him at supper, you will make his excuse.

Helen:¶My Lord Pandarus—

Pandarus:¶What says my sweet queen, my very, very sweet queen?

Paris:¶What exploit’s in hand? Where sups he tonight?

Helen:¶Nay, but, my lord—

Pandarus:¶What says my sweet queen? My cousin will fall out with you.

Helen:¶[to Paris] 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 ’s 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. [An Attendant gives him 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. Love, love, nothing but love, still love, still more! For, O, love’s bow Shoots buck and doe. The shaft confounds Not that it wounds But tickles still the sore. These lovers cry "O ho!" they die, Yet that which seems the wound to kill Doth turn "O ho!" to "Ha ha he!" So dying love lives still. "O ho!" awhile, but "Ha ha ha!" "O ho!"groans out for "ha ha ha!"—Hey ho!

Helen:¶In love, i’ faith, to the very tip of the nose.

Paris:¶He eats nothing but doves, love, and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love.

Pandarus:¶Is this the generation of love? Hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who’s afield today?

Paris:¶Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy. I would fain have armed today, but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not?

Helen:¶He hangs the lip at something.—You know all, Lord Pandarus.

Pandarus:¶Not I, honey sweet queen. I long to hear how they sped today.—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.

He exits.

Sound a retreat.

Paris:¶They’re come from the field. Let us to Priam’s hall To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you To help unarm our Hector. His stubborn buckles, With these your white enchanting fingers touched, Shall more obey than to the edge of steel Or force of Greekish sinews. You shall do more Than all the island kings: disarm great Hector.

Helen:¶’Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris. Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty Gives us more palm in beauty than we have, Yea, overshines ourself.

Paris:¶Sweet, above thought I love thee.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Pandarus and Troilus’s Man, meeting.

Pandarus:¶How now? Where’s thy master? At my cousin Cressida’s?

Troilus’s Man:¶No, sir, he stays for you to conduct him thither.

Enter Troilus.

Pandarus:¶O, here he comes.—How now, how now?

Troilus:¶[to his Man] Sirrah, walk off.

Man exits.

Pandarus:¶Have you seen my cousin?

Troilus:¶No, Pandarus. I stalk about her door Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon, And give me swift transportance to those fields Where I may wallow in the lily beds Proposed for the deserver! O, gentle Pandar, From Cupid’s shoulder pluck his painted wings And fly with me to Cressid!

Pandarus:¶Walk here i’ th’ orchard. I’ll bring her straight.

Pandarus exits.

Troilus:¶I am giddy; expectation whirls me round. Th’ imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense. What will it be When that the wat’ry palate taste indeed Love’s thrice-repurèd 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.

Enter Pandarus.

Pandarus:¶She’s making her ready; she’ll come straight. You must be witty now. She does so blush and fetches her wind so short as if she were frayed with a spirit. I’ll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain. She fetches her breath as short as a new-ta’en sparrow.

Pandarus exits.

Troilus:¶Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom. My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse, And all my powers do their bestowing lose, Like vassalage at unawares encount’ring The eye of majesty.

Enter Pandarus, and Cressida veiled.

Pandarus:¶[to Cressida] 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. [Cressida offers to leave.] 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’ th’ thills.—Why do you not speak to her?—Come, draw this curtain and let’s see your picture. [He draws back her veil.] Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! An ’twere dark, you’d close sooner.—So, so, rub on, and kiss the mistress. [(They kiss.)] How now? A kiss in fee-farm? Build there, carpenter; the air is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i’ th’ river. Go to, go to.

Troilus:¶You have bereft me of all words, lady.

Pandarus:¶Words pay no debts; give her deeds. But she’ll bereave you o’ th’ deeds too, if she call your activity in question. [(They kiss.)] What, billing again? Here’s "In witness whereof the parties interchangeably—." Come in, come in. I’ll go get a fire.

Pandarus exits.

Cressida:¶Will you walk in, my lord?

Troilus:¶O Cressid, 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?

Enter Pandarus.

Pandarus:¶What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?

Cressida:¶Well, uncle, what folly I commit I dedicate to you.

Pandarus:¶I thank you for that. If my lord get a boy of you, you’ll give him me. Be true to my lord. If he flinch, chide me for it.

Troilus:¶[to Cressida] 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 be wooed, they are constant being won. They are burrs, I can tell you; they’ll stick where they are thrown.

Cressida:¶Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart. Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day For many weary months.

Troilus:¶Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?

Cressida:¶Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord, With the first glance that ever—pardon me; If I confess much, you will play the tyrant. I love you now, but till now not so much But I might master it. In faith, I lie; My thoughts were like unbridled children grown Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools! Why have I blabbed? Who shall be true to us When we are so unsecret to ourselves? But though I loved you well, I wooed you not; And yet, good faith, I wished myself a man; Or that we women had men’s privilege Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue, For in this rapture I shall surely speak The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence, Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws My very soul of counsel! Stop my mouth.

Troilus:¶And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.

They kiss.

Pandarus:¶Pretty, i’ faith!

Cressida:¶[to Troilus] 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 tomorrow morning—

Cressida:¶Pray you, content you.

Troilus:¶What offends you, lady?

Cressida:¶Sir, mine own company.

Troilus:¶You cannot shun yourself.

Cressida:¶Let me go and try. I have a kind of self resides with you, But an unkind self that itself will leave To be another’s fool. 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 lamp and flames of love, To keep her constancy in plight and youth, Outliving beauty’s outward, with a mind That doth renew swifter than blood decays! Or that persuasion could but thus convince me That my integrity and truth to you Might be affronted with the match and weight Of such a winnowed purity in love; How were I then uplifted! But, alas, I am as true as truth’s simplicity And simpler than the infancy of truth.

Cressida:¶In that I’ll war with you.

Troilus:¶O virtuous fight, When right with right wars who shall be most right! True swains in love shall in the world to come Approve their truth by Troilus. When their rhymes, Full of protest, of oath and big compare, Wants similes, truth tired with iteration— "As true as steel, as plantage to the moon, As sun to day, as turtle to her mate, As iron to adamant, as Earth to th’ center"— Yet, after all comparisons of truth, As truth’s authentic author to be cited, "As true as Troilus" shall crown up the verse And sanctify the numbers.

Cressida:¶Prophet may you be! If I be false or swerve a hair from truth, When time is old and hath forgot itself, When water drops have worn the stones of Troy And blind oblivion swallowed cities up, And mighty states characterless are grated To dusty nothing, yet let memory, From false to false, among false maids in love, Upbraid my falsehood! When they’ve said "as false As air, as water, wind or sandy earth, As fox to lamb, or wolf to heifer’s calf, Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son," Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood, "As false as Cressid."

Pandarus:¶Go to, a bargain made. Seal it, seal it. I’ll be the witness. Here I hold your hand, here my cousin’s. If ever you prove false one to another, since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world’s end after my name: call them all panders. Let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between panders. 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. [Troilus and Cressida exit.] And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here Bed, chamber, pander to provide this gear.

He exits.

Scene 3

Flourish. Enter Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, Agamemnon, Calchas, Menelaus, and Ajax.

Calchas:¶Now, princes, for the service I have done you, Th’ advantage of the time prompts me aloud To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind That, through the sight I bear in things to come, I have abandoned Troy, left my possessions, Incurred a traitor’s name, exposed myself, From certain and possessed conveniences, To doubtful fortunes, sequest’ring from me all That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition Made tame and most familiar to my nature, And here, to do you service, am become As new into the world, strange, unacquainted. I do beseech you, as in way of taste, To give me now a little benefit Out of those many regist’red in promise, Which you say live to come in my behalf.

Agamemnon:¶What wouldst thou of us, Trojan, make demand?

Calchas:¶You have a Trojan prisoner called Antenor Yesterday took. Troy holds him very dear. Oft have you—often have you thanks therefor— Desired my Cressid in right great exchange, Whom Troy hath still denied; but this Antenor, I know, is such a wrest in their affairs That their negotiations all must slack, Wanting his manage; and they will almost Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam, In change of him. Let him be sent, great princes, And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence Shall quite strike off all service I have done In most accepted pain.

Agamemnon:¶Let Diomedes bear him, And bring us Cressid hither. Calchas shall have What he requests of us. Good Diomed, Furnish you fairly for this interchange. Withal, bring word if Hector will tomorrow Be answered in his challenge. Ajax is ready.

Diomedes:¶This shall I undertake, and ’tis a burden Which I am proud to bear.

He exits with Calchas.

Achilles and Patroclus stand in their tent.

Ulysses:¶Achilles stands i’ th’ entrance of his tent. Please it our General pass strangely by him As if he were forgot, and, princes all, Lay negligent and loose regard upon him. I will come last. ’Tis like he’ll question me Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turned on him. If so, I have derision medicinable To use between your strangeness and his pride, Which his own will shall have desire to drink. It may do good; pride hath no other glass To show itself but pride, for supple knees Feed arrogance and are the proud man’s fees.

Agamemnon:¶We’ll execute your purpose and put on A form of strangeness as we pass along; So do each lord, and either greet him not Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more Than if not looked on. I will lead the way.

They pass before Achilles and Patroclus. Ulysses remains in place, reading.

Achilles:¶What, comes the General to speak with me? You know my mind: I’ll fight no more ’gainst Troy.

Agamemnon:¶[to Nestor] What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?

Nestor:¶[to Achilles] Would you, my lord, aught with the General?

Achilles:¶No.

Nestor:¶Nothing, my lord.

Agamemnon:¶The better.

Agamemnon and Nestor exit.

Achilles:¶[to Menelaus] Good day, good day.

Menelaus:¶How do you? How do you?

He exits.

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.

He exits.

Achilles:¶What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?

Patroclus:¶They pass by strangely. They were used to bend, To send their smiles before them to Achilles, To come as humbly as they use to creep To holy altars.

Achilles:¶What, am I poor of late? ’Tis certain, greatness, once fall’n out with Fortune, Must fall out with men too. What the declined is He shall as soon read in the eyes of others As feel in his own fall, for men, like butterflies, Show not their mealy wings but to the summer, And not a man, for being simply man, Hath any honor, but honor for those honors That are without him—as place, riches, and favor, Prizes of accident as oft as merit, Which, when they fall, as being slippery slanders, The love that leaned on them, as slippery too, Doth one pluck down another and together Die in the fall. But ’tis not so with me. Fortune and I are friends. I do enjoy, At ample point, all that I did possess, Save these men’s looks, who do, methinks, find out Something not worth in me such rich beholding As they have often given. Here is Ulysses. I’ll interrupt his reading.—How now, Ulysses?

Ulysses:¶Now, great Thetis’ son—

Achilles:¶What are you reading?

Ulysses:¶A strange fellow here Writes me that man, how dearly ever parted, How much in having, or without or in, Cannot make boast to have that which he hath, Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection; As when his virtues, shining upon others, Heat them, and they retort that heat again To the first giver.

Achilles:¶This is not strange, Ulysses. The beauty that is borne here in the face The bearer knows not, but commends itself To others’ eyes; nor doth the eye itself, That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself, Not going from itself, but eye to eye opposed Salutes each other with each other’s form. For speculation turns not to itself Till it hath traveled and is mirrored there Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.

Ulysses:¶I do not strain at the position— It is familiar—but at the author’s drift, Who in his circumstance expressly proves That no man is the lord of anything— Though in and of him there be much consisting— Till he communicate his parts to others; Nor doth he of himself know them for aught Till he behold them formed in the applause Where they’re extended; who, like an arch, reverb’rate The voice again or, like a gate of steel Fronting the sun, receives and renders back His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this And apprehended here immediately Th’ unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there! A very horse, that has he knows not what! Nature, what things there are Most abject in regard, and dear in use, What things again most dear in the esteem And poor in worth! Now shall we see tomorrow— An act that very chance doth throw upon him— Ajax renowned. O, heavens, what some men do While some men leave to do! How some men creep in skittish Fortune’s hall, Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes! How one man eats into another’s pride, While pride is fasting in his wantonness! To see these Grecian lords—why, even already They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast And great Troy shrieking.

Achilles:¶I do believe it, for they passed by me As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me Good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?

Ulysses:¶Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes. Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done. Perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honor bright. To have done is to hang Quite out of fashion like a rusty mail In monumental mock’ry. Take the instant way, For honor 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 turn aside from the direct forthright, Like to an entered tide they all rush by And leave you hindmost; Or, like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O’errun and trampled on. Then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o’ertop yours; For Time is like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’ hand And, with his arms outstretched as he would fly, Grasps in the comer. Welcome ever smiles, And Farewell goes out sighing. Let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was, For beauty, wit, High birth, vigor 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 newborn gauds, Though they are made and molded of things past, And give to dust that is a little gilt More laud than gilt o’erdusted. The present eye praises the present object. Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax, Since things in motion sooner catch the eye Than what stirs not. The cry went once on thee, And still it might, and yet it may again, If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive And case thy reputation in thy tent, Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of late Made emulous missions ’mongst the gods themselves And drave great Mars to faction.

Achilles:¶Of this my privacy, I have strong reasons.

Ulysses:¶But ’gainst your privacy The reasons are more potent and heroical. ’Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love With one of Priam’s daughters.

Achilles:¶Ha? Known?

Ulysses:¶Is that a wonder? The providence that’s in a watchful state Knows almost every grain of Pluto’s gold, Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deep, Keeps place with thought and almost, like the gods, Do thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. There is a mystery—with whom relation Durst never meddle—in the soul of state, Which hath an operation more divine Than breath or pen can give expressure to. All the commerce that you have had with Troy As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord; And better would it fit Achilles much To throw down Hector than Polyxena. But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home When Fame shall in our islands sound her trump, And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing "Great Hector’s sister did Achilles win, But our great Ajax bravely beat down him." Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak. The fool slides o’er the ice that you should break.

He exits.

Patroclus:¶To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you. A woman impudent and mannish grown Is not more loathed than an effeminate man In time of action. I stand condemned for this. They think my little stomach to the war, And your great love to me, restrains you thus. Sweet, rouse yourself, and the weak wanton Cupid Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold And, like a dewdrop from the lion’s mane, Be shook to air.

Achilles:¶Shall Ajax fight with Hector?

Patroclus:¶Ay, and perhaps receive much honor 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 they sit idly in the sun.

Achilles:¶Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus. I’ll send the fool to Ajax and desire him T’ invite the Trojan lords after the combat To see us here unarmed. I have a woman’s longing, An appetite that I am sick withal, To see great Hector in his weeds of peace, To talk with him, and to behold his visage, Even to my full of view. [Enter Thersites.] A labor saved.

Thersites:¶A wonder!

Achilles:¶What?

Thersites:¶Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself.

Achilles:¶How so?

Thersites:¶He must fight singly tomorrow with Hector and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgeling 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’ th’ combat, he’ll break ’t himself in vainglory. He knows not me. I said "Good morrow, Ajax," and he replies "Thanks, Agamemnon." What think you of this man that takes me for the General? He’s grown a very land-fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin.

Achilles:¶Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

Thersites:¶Who, I? Why, he’ll answer nobody. He professes not answering; speaking is for beggars; he wears his tongue in ’s arms. I will put on his presence. Let Patroclus make his demands to me. You shall see the pageant of Ajax.

Achilles:¶To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarmed to my tent, and to procure safe-conduct for his person of the magnanimous and most illustrious, six-or-seven-times-honored captain general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon, et cetera. Do this.

Patroclus:¶[to Thersites, who is playing Ajax] 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 tomorrow be a fair day, by eleven of the 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.

He pretends to exit.

Achilles:¶Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?

Thersites:¶No, but he’s out of 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 stirred, And I myself see not the bottom of it.

Achilles and Patroclus exit.

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.

He exits.

Act 4

Scene 1

Enter at one door Aeneas with a Torchbearer, at another Paris, Deiphobus, Antenor, Diomedes and Grecians 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 bedmate 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 armed, 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 human gentleness, Welcome to Troy. Now, by Anchises’ life, Welcome indeed. By Venus’ hand I swear No man alive can love in such a sort The thing he means to kill more excellently.

Diomedes:¶We sympathize. Jove, let Aeneas live, If to my sword his fate be not the glory, A thousand complete courses of the sun! But in mine emulous honor let him die With every joint a wound and that tomorrow.

Aeneas:¶We know each other well.

Diomedes:¶We do, and long to know each other worse.

Paris:¶This is the most despiteful gentle greeting, The noblest hateful love, that e’er I heard of. [To Aeneas.] What business, lord, so early?

Aeneas:¶I was sent for to the King, but why I know not.

Paris:¶His purpose meets you. ’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. [(Aside to Aeneas.)] I constantly believe— Or, rather, call my thought a certain knowledge— My brother Troilus lodges there tonight. Rouse him, and give him note of our approach, With the whole quality whereof. I fear We shall be much unwelcome.

Aeneas:¶[aside to Paris] That I assure you. Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece Than Cressid borne from Troy.

Paris:¶[aside to Aeneas] There is no help. The bitter disposition of the time Will have it so.—On, lord, we’ll follow you.

Aeneas:¶Good morrow, all.

Aeneas exits with the Torchbearer.

Paris:¶And tell me, noble Diomed, faith, tell me true, Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship, Who, in your thoughts, deserves 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 dishonor, With such a costly loss of wealth and friends. He, like a puling cuckold, would drink up The lees and dregs of a flat tamèd 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 suffered death.

Paris:¶Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do, Dispraise the thing that they desire to buy. But we in silence hold this virtue well: We’ll not commend that not intend to sell. Here lies our way.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Troilus and Cressida.

Troilus:¶Dear, trouble not yourself. The morn is cold.

Cressida:¶Then, sweet my lord, I’ll call mine uncle down. He shall unbolt the gates.

Troilus:¶Trouble him not. To bed, to bed! Sleep kill those pretty eyes And give as soft attachment to thy senses As infants’ empty of all thought!

Cressida:¶Good morrow, then.

Troilus:¶I prithee now, to bed.

Cressida:¶Are you aweary of me?

Troilus:¶O Cressida! But that the busy day, Waked by the lark, hath roused the ribald crows, And dreaming night will hide our joys no longer, I would not from thee.

Cressida:¶Night hath been too brief.

Troilus:¶Beshrew the witch! With venomous wights she stays As 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! Has ’t not slept tonight? Would he not—a naughty man—let it sleep? A bugbear take him!

Cressida:¶[to Troilus] Did not I tell you? Would he were knocked i’ th’ head! [One knocks.] Who’s that at door?—Good uncle, go and see.— My lord, come you again into my chamber. You smile and mock me, as if I meant naughtily.

Troilus:¶Ha, ha!

Cressida:¶Come, you are deceived. I think of no such thing. [Knock.] How earnestly they knock! Pray you, come in. I would not for half Troy have you seen here.

Troilus and Cressida exit.

Pandarus:¶Who’s there? What’s the matter? Will you beat down the door? [Enter Aeneas.] How now? What’s the matter?

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? It’s more than I know, I’ll be sworn. For my own part, I came in late. What should he do here?

Aeneas:¶Ho, nay, then! Come, come, you’ll do him wrong ere you are 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.

Enter Troilus.

Troilus:¶How now? What’s the matter?

Aeneas:¶My lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you, My matter is so rash. There is at hand Paris your brother and Deiphobus, The Grecian Diomed, and our Antenor Delivered to us; and for him forthwith, Ere the first sacrifice, within this hour, We must give up to Diomedes’ hand The Lady Cressida.

Troilus:¶Is it so concluded?

Aeneas:¶By Priam and the general state of Troy. They are at hand and ready to effect it.

Troilus:¶How my achievements mock me! I will go meet them. And, my Lord Aeneas, We met by chance; you did not find me here.

Aeneas:¶Good, good, my lord; the secrets of nature Have not more gift in taciturnity.

Troilus and Aeneas exit.

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!

Enter Cressida.

Cressida:¶How now? What’s the matter? Who was here?

Pandarus:¶Ah, ah!

Cressida:¶Why sigh you so profoundly? Where’s my lord? Gone? Tell me, sweet uncle, what’s the matter?

Pandarus:¶Would I were as deep under the earth as I am above!

Cressida:¶O the gods! What’s the matter?

Pandarus:¶Pray thee, 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 center 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 praisèd cheeks, Crack my clear voice with sobs, and break my heart With sounding "Troilus." I will not go from Troy.

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter Paris, Troilus, Aeneas, Deiphobus, Antenor, and Diomedes.

Paris:¶It is great morning, and the hour prefixed For her delivery to this valiant Greek Comes fast upon. Good my brother Troilus, Tell you the lady what she is to do And haste her to the purpose.

Troilus:¶Walk into her house. I’ll bring her to the Grecian presently; And to his hand when I deliver her, Think it an altar and thy brother Troilus A priest there off’ring to it his own heart.

He exits.

Paris:¶I know what ’tis to love, And would, as I shall pity, I could help.— Please you walk in, my lords?

They exit.

Scene 4

Enter Pandarus and Cressida, weeping.

Pandarus:¶Be moderate, be moderate.

Cressida:¶Why tell you me of moderation? The grief is fine, full, perfect that I taste, And violenteth in a sense as strong As that which causeth it. How can I moderate it? If I could temporize with my affection Or brew it to a weak and colder palate, The like allayment could I give my grief. My love admits no qualifying dross; No more my grief in such a precious loss.

Enter Troilus.

Pandarus:¶Here, here, here he comes. Ah, sweet ducks!

Cressida:¶[embracing Troilus] O Troilus, Troilus!

Pandarus:¶What a pair of spectacles is here! Let me embrace too. "O heart," as the goodly saying is, O heart, heavy heart, Why sigh’st thou without breaking? where he answers again, Because thou canst not ease thy smart By friendship nor by speaking. There was never a truer rhyme. Let us cast away nothing, for we may live to have need of such a verse. We see it, we see it. How now, lambs?

Troilus:¶Cressid, I love thee in so strained a purity That the blest gods, as angry with my fancy— More bright in zeal than the devotion which Cold lips blow to their deities—take thee from me.

Cressida:¶Have the gods envy?

Pandarus:¶Ay, ay, ay, ay, ’tis too plain a case.

Cressida:¶And is it true that I must go from Troy?

Troilus:¶A hateful truth.

Cressida:¶What, and from Troilus too?

Troilus:¶From Troy and Troilus.

Cressida:¶Is ’t possible?

Troilus:¶And suddenly, where injury of chance Puts back leave-taking, jostles roughly by All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents Our locked embrasures, strangles our dear vows Even in the birth of our own laboring 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 thiev’ry up, he knows not how. As many farewells as be stars in heaven, With distinct breath and consigned kisses to them, He fumbles up into a loose adieu And scants us with a single famished kiss, Distasted with the salt of broken tears.

Aeneas:¶[within] My lord, is the lady ready?

Troilus:¶Hark, you are called. Some say the genius Cries so 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.

He exits.

Cressida:¶I must, then, to the Grecians?

Troilus:¶No remedy.

Cressida:¶A woeful Cressid ’mongst the merry Greeks. When shall we see again?

Troilus:¶Hear me, my love. Be thou but true of heart—

Cressida:¶I true? How now, what wicked deem is this?

Troilus:¶Nay, we must use expostulation kindly, For it is parting from us. I speak not "Be thou true" as fearing thee, For I will throw my glove to Death himself That there is 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?

They exchange love-tokens.

Troilus:¶I will corrupt the Grecian sentinels, To give thee nightly visitation. But yet, be true.

Cressida:¶O heavens! "Be true" again?

Troilus:¶Hear why I speak it, love. The Grecian youths are full of quality, Their loving well composed, with gift of nature flowing, And swelling o’er with arts and exercise. How novelty may move, and parts with person, Alas, a kind of godly jealousy— Which I beseech you call a virtuous sin— Makes me 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-discursive 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.

They kiss.

Paris:¶[within] Brother Troilus!

Troilus:¶[calling] 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 Ilium.

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

Troilus:¶Grecian, thou dost not use me courteously, To shame the zeal of my petition to thee In praising her. I tell thee, lord of Greece, She is as far high-soaring o’er thy praises As thou unworthy to be called her servant. I charge thee use her well, even for my charge, For, by the dreadful Pluto, if thou dost not, Though the great bulk Achilles be thy guard, I’ll cut thy throat.

Diomedes:¶O, be not moved, Prince Troilus. Let me be privileged by my place and message To be a speaker free. When I am hence, I’ll answer to my lust, and know you, lord, I’ll nothing do on charge. To her own worth She shall be prized; but that you say "Be ’t so," I speak it in my spirit and honor: "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.

Cressida, Diomedes, and Troilus exit.

Sound trumpet within.

Paris:¶Hark, Hector’s trumpet.

Aeneas:¶How have we spent this morning! The Prince must think me tardy and remiss That swore to ride before him 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.

They exit.

Scene 5

Enter Ajax, armed, Achilles, Patroclus, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Ulysses, Nestor, etc. and Trumpeter.

Agamemnon:¶[to Ajax] 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 appallèd air May pierce the head of the great combatant And hale him hither.

Ajax:¶Thou, trumpet, there’s my purse. [He gives money to Trumpeter.] Now crack thy lungs and split thy brazen pipe. Blow, villain, till thy spherèd bias cheek Outswell the colic of puffed Aquilon. Come, stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout blood. Thou blowest for Hector.

Sound trumpet.

Ulysses:¶No trumpet answers.

Achilles:¶’Tis but early days.

Enter Cressida and Diomedes.

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.

Agamemnon:¶Is this the Lady Cressid?

Diomedes:¶Even she.

Agamemnon:¶Most dearly welcome to the Greeks, sweet lady.

He kisses her.

Nestor:¶Our general doth salute you with a kiss.

Ulysses:¶Yet is the kindness but particular. ’Twere better she were kissed in general.

Nestor:¶And very courtly counsel. I’ll begin. [He kisses her.] So much for Nestor.

Achilles:¶I’ll take that winter from your lips, fair lady. Achilles bids you welcome.

He kisses her.

Menelaus:¶I had good argument for kissing once.

Patroclus:¶[stepping between Menelaus and Cressida] But that’s no argument for kissing now, For thus popped Paris in his hardiment And parted thus you and your argument.

He kisses her.

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.

He kisses her again.

Menelaus:¶O, this is trim!

Patroclus:¶Paris and I kiss evermore for him.

Menelaus:¶I’ll have my kiss, sir.—Lady, by your leave.

Cressida:¶In kissing, do you render or receive?

Menelaus:¶Both take and give.

Cressida:¶I’ll make my match to live, The kiss you take is better than you give. Therefore no kiss.

Menelaus:¶I’ll give you boot: I’ll give you three for one.

Cressida:¶You are an odd man. Give even, or give none.

Menelaus:¶An odd man, lady? Every man is odd.

Cressida:¶No, Paris is not, for you know ’tis true That you are odd, and he is even with you.

Menelaus:¶You fillip me o’ th’ head.

Cressida:¶No, I’ll be sworn.

Ulysses:¶It were no match, your nail against his horn. May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?

Cressida:¶You may.

Ulysses:¶I do desire it.

Cressida:¶Why, beg two.

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.

Diomedes and Cressida talk aside.

Nestor:¶A woman of quick sense.

Ulysses:¶Fie, fie upon her! There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip; Nay, her foot speaks. Her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body. O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue, That give accosting welcome ere it comes And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts To every tickling reader! Set them down For sluttish spoils of opportunity And daughters of the game.

Diomedes and Cressida exit.

Flourish.

Ajax, Achilles, Patroclus, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Ulysses, Nestor:¶The Trojan’s trumpet.

Enter all of Troy: Hector, armed, Paris, Aeneas, Helenus, Troilus, and Attendants.

Agamemnon:¶Yonder comes the troop.

Aeneas:¶Hail, all the state of Greece! What shall be done To him that victory commands? Or do you purpose A victor shall be known? Will you the knights Shall to the edge of all extremity Pursue each other, or shall they be divided By any voice or order of the field? Hector bade ask.

Agamemnon:¶Which way would Hector have it?

Aeneas:¶He cares not; he’ll obey conditions.

Agamemnon:¶’Tis done like Hector.

Achilles:¶But securely done, A little proudly, and great deal 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, Valor 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.

Enter Diomedes.

Agamemnon:¶Here is Sir Diomed.—Go, gentle knight; Stand by our Ajax. As you and Lord Aeneas Consent upon the order of their fight, So be it, either to the uttermost Or else a breath. The combatants being kin Half stints their strife before their strokes begin.

Hector and Ajax 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 calmed, His heart and hand both open and both free. For what he has, he gives; what thinks, he shows; Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty, Nor dignifies an impair 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 Ilium thus translate him to me.

Alarum. The fight begins.

Agamemnon:¶They are in action.

Nestor:¶Now, Ajax, hold thine own!

Troilus:¶Hector, thou sleep’st. Awake thee!

Agamemnon:¶His blows are well disposed.—There, Ajax!

Trumpets cease.

Diomedes:¶You must no more.

Aeneas:¶Princes, enough, so please you.

Ajax:¶I am not warm yet. Let us fight again.

Diomedes:¶As Hector pleases.

Hector:¶Why, then, will I no more.— Thou art, great lord, my father’s sister’s son, A cousin-german to great Priam’s seed. The obligation of our blood forbids A gory emulation ’twixt us twain. Were thy commixtion Greek and Trojan so That thou couldst say "This hand is Grecian all, And this is Trojan; the sinews of this leg All Greek, and this all Troy; my mother’s blood Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister Bounds in my father’s," by Jove multipotent, Thou shouldst not bear from me a Greekish member Wherein my sword had not impressure made Of our rank feud. But the just gods gainsay That any drop thou borrowd’st from thy mother, My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword Be drained. Let me embrace thee, Ajax. By him that thunders, thou hast lusty arms! Hector would have them fall upon him thus. Cousin, all honor to thee!

They embrace.

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 earnèd in thy death.

Hector:¶Not Neoptolemus so mirable— On whose bright crest Fame with her loud’st "Oyez" Cries "This is he"—could promise to himself A thought of added honor 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.

They embrace again.

Ajax:¶If I might in entreaties find success, As seld I have the chance, I would desire My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.

Diomedes:¶’Tis Agamemnon’s wish; and great Achilles Doth long to see unarmed the valiant Hector.

Hector:¶Aeneas, call my brother Troilus to me, And signify this loving interview To the expecters of our Trojan part; Desire them home. [Aeneas speaks to Trojans, who exit; he then returns with Troilus.] [To Ajax.] Give me thy hand, my cousin. I will go eat with thee and see your knights.

Agamemnon and the rest come forward.

Ajax:¶Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.

Hector:¶[to Aeneas] The worthiest of them tell me name by name; But for Achilles, my own searching eyes Shall find him by his large and portly size.

Agamemnon:¶Worthy all arms! As welcome as to one That would be rid of such an enemy— But that’s no welcome. Understand more clear: What’s past and what’s to come is strewed with husks And formless ruin of oblivion; But in this extant moment, faith and troth, Strained purely from all hollow bias-drawing, Bids thee, with most divine integrity, From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.

Hector:¶I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon.

Agamemnon:¶[to Troilus] My well-famed lord of Troy, no less to you.

Menelaus:¶Let me confirm my princely brother’s greeting: You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.

Hector:¶[to Aeneas] Who must we answer?

Aeneas:¶The noble Menelaus.

Hector:¶O, you, my lord? By Mars his gauntlet, thanks! Mock not that I affect th’ untraded oath; Your quondam wife swears still by Venus’ glove. She’s well, but bade me not commend her to you.

Menelaus:¶Name her not now, sir; she’s a deadly theme.

Hector:¶O, pardon! I offend.

Nestor:¶I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft, Laboring 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 subduments, When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i’ th’ air, Not letting it decline on the declined, That I have said to some my standers-by "Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!" And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath When that a ring of Greeks have hemmed thee in, Like an Olympian wrestling. This have I seen. But this thy countenance, still locked in steel, I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire And once fought with him; he was a soldier good, But, by great Mars, the captain of us all, Never like thee! O, let an old man embrace thee; And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.

Aeneas:¶[to Hector] ’Tis the old Nestor.

Hector:¶Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle That hast so long walked hand in hand with time. Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee.

They embrace.

Nestor:¶I would my arms could match thee in contention As they contend with thee in courtesy.

Hector:¶I would they could.

Nestor:¶Ha! By this white beard, I’d fight with thee tomorrow. Well, welcome, welcome. I have seen the time!

Ulysses:¶I wonder now how yonder city stands When we have here her base and pillar by us.

Hector:¶I know your favor, Lord Ulysses, well. Ah, sir, there’s many a Greek and Trojan dead Since first I saw yourself and Diomed In Ilium, 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, Yon towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds, Must kiss their own feet.

Hector:¶I must not believe you. There they stand yet, and modestly I think The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost A drop of Grecian blood. The end crowns all, And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it.

Ulysses:¶So to him we leave it. Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome. After the General, I beseech you next To feast with me and see me at my tent.

Achilles:¶I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses, thou!— Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee; I have with exact view perused thee, Hector, And quoted joint by joint.

Hector:¶Is this Achilles?

Achilles:¶I am Achilles.

Hector:¶Stand fair, I pray thee. Let me look on thee.

Achilles:¶Behold thy fill.

Hector:¶Nay, I have done already.

Achilles:¶Thou art too brief. I will the second time, As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.

Hector:¶O, like a book of sport thou ’lt read me o’er; But there’s more in me than thou understand’st. Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?

Achilles:¶Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his body Shall I destroy him—whether there, or there, or there— That I may give the local wound a name And make distinct the very breach whereout Hector’s great spirit flew. Answer me, heavens!

Hector:¶It would discredit the blest gods, proud man, To answer such a question. Stand again. Think’st thou to catch my life so pleasantly As to prenominate in nice conjecture Where thou wilt hit me dead?

Achilles:¶I tell thee, yea.

Hector:¶Wert thou an oracle to tell me so, I’d not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well, For I’ll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there, But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm, I’ll kill thee everywhere, yea, o’er and o’er.— You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag; His insolence draws folly from my lips. But I’ll endeavor 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:¶[to Achilles] I pray you, let us see you in the field. We have had pelting wars since you refused The Grecians’ cause.

Achilles:¶Dost thou entreat me, Hector? Tomorrow do I meet thee, fell as death; Tonight all friends.

Hector:¶Thy hand upon that match.

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

Flourish.

All but Troilus and Ulysses exit.

Troilus:¶My Lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you, In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?

Ulysses:¶At Menelaus’ tent, most princely Troilus. There Diomed doth feast with him tonight, Who neither looks 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 honor 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.

They exit.

Act 5

Scene 1

Enter Achilles and Patroclus.

Achilles:¶I’ll heat his blood with Greekish wine tonight, Which with my scimitar I’ll cool tomorrow. Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.

Patroclus:¶Here comes Thersites.

Enter Thersites.

Achilles:¶How now, thou core of envy? Thou crusty botch 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.

Achilles takes the letter and moves aside to read it.

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 said 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 in the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, whissing lungs, bladders full of impostume, sciaticas, limekilns i’ th’ palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries.

Patroclus:¶Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what means 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 sarsenet 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:¶[coming forward] My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite From my great purpose in tomorrow’s battle. Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba, A token from her daughter, my fair love, Both taxing me and gaging me to keep An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it. Fall, Greeks; fail, fame; honor, 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.

He exits with Patroclus.

Thersites:¶With too much blood and too little brain, these two may run mad; but if with too much brain and too little blood they do, I’ll be a curer of madmen. Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough and one that loves quails, but he has not so much brain as earwax. And the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull—the primitive statue and oblique memorial of cuckolds, a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother’s leg—to what form but that he is should wit larded with malice and malice forced with wit turn him to? To an ass were nothing; he is both ass and ox. To an ox were nothing; he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to be Menelaus! I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would be, if I were not Thersites, for I care not to be the louse of a lazar so I were not Menelaus. [Enter Hector, Troilus, Ajax, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Menelaus, and Diomedes, with lights.] Heyday! Sprites and fires!

Agamemnon:¶We go wrong, we go wrong.

Ajax:¶No, yonder—’tis there, where we see the lights.

Hector:¶I trouble you.

Ajax:¶No, not a whit.

Enter Achilles.

Ulysses:¶[to Hector] Here comes himself to guide you.

Achilles:¶Welcome, brave Hector. Welcome, princes all.

Agamemnon:¶[to Hector] So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good night. Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.

Hector:¶Thanks, and good night to the Greeks’ general.

Menelaus:¶Good night, my lord.

Hector:¶Good night, sweet lord Menelaus.

Thersites:¶[aside] Sweet draught. "Sweet," quoth he? Sweet sink, sweet sewer.

Achilles:¶Good night and welcome, both at once, to those That go or tarry.

Agamemnon:¶Good night.

Agamemnon and Menelaus exit.

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 honor me.

Hector:¶And so, good night.

Diomedes exits, followed by Troilus and Ulysses.

Achilles:¶Come, come, enter my tent.

Achilles, Ajax, Nestor, and Hector exit.

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 his tent. I’ll after. Nothing but lechery! All incontinent varlets!

He exits.

Scene 2

Enter Diomedes.

Diomedes:¶What, are you up here, ho? Speak.

Calchas:¶[within] Who calls?

Diomedes:¶Diomed. Calchas, I think? Where’s your daughter?

Calchas:¶[within] She comes to you.

Enter Troilus and Ulysses, at a distance, and then, apart from them, Thersites.

Ulysses:¶[aside to Troilus] Stand where the torch may not discover us.

Enter Cressida.

Troilus:¶[aside to Ulysses] Cressid comes forth to him.

Diomedes:¶How now, my charge?

Cressida:¶Now, my sweet guardian. Hark, a word with you.

She whispers to him.

Troilus:¶[aside] Yea, so familiar?

Ulysses:¶[aside to Troilus] She will sing any man at first sight.

Thersites:¶[aside] And any man may sing her, if he can take her clef. She’s noted.

Diomedes:¶Will you remember?

Cressida:¶Remember? Yes.

Diomedes:¶Nay, but do, then, and let your mind be coupled with your words.

Troilus:¶[aside] What should she remember?

Ulysses:¶[aside to Troilus] List!

Cressida:¶Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.

Thersites:¶[aside] 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:¶[aside] A juggling trick: to be secretly open!

Diomedes:¶What did you swear you would bestow on me?

Cressida:¶I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath. Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.

Diomedes:¶Good night.

Troilus:¶[aside] Hold, patience!

Ulysses:¶[aside to Troilus] How now, Trojan?

Cressida:¶Diomed—

Diomedes:¶No, no, good night. I’ll be your fool no more.

Troilus:¶[aside] Thy better must.

Cressida:¶Hark, a word in your ear.

She whispers to him.

Troilus:¶[aside] O plague and madness!

Ulysses:¶[aside to Troilus] 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:¶[aside to Ulysses] Behold, I pray you.

Ulysses:¶[aside to Troilus] Nay, good my lord, go off. You flow to great distraction. Come, my lord.

Troilus:¶[aside to Ulysses] I prithee, stay.

Ulysses:¶[aside to Troilus] You have not patience. Come.

Troilus:¶[aside to Ulysses] I pray you, stay. By hell and all hell’s torments, I will not speak a word.

Diomedes:¶And so good night.

He starts to leave.

Cressida:¶Nay, but you part in anger.

Troilus:¶[aside] Doth that grieve thee? O withered truth!

Ulysses:¶[aside to Troilus] How now, my lord?

Troilus:¶[aside to Ulysses] 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:¶[aside to Troilus] You shake, my lord, at something. Will you go? You will break out.

Troilus:¶[aside] She strokes his cheek!

Ulysses:¶[aside to Troilus] Come, come.

Troilus:¶[aside to Ulysses] Nay, stay. By Jove, I will not speak a word. There is between my will and all offenses A guard of patience. Stay a little while.

Thersites:¶[aside] 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.

She exits.

Ulysses:¶[aside to Troilus] You have sworn patience.

Troilus:¶[aside to Ulysses] Fear me not, my lord. I will not be myself nor have cognition Of what I feel. I am all patience.

Enter Cressida with Troilus’s sleeve.

Thersites:¶[aside] Now the pledge, now, now, now!

Cressida:¶[giving the sleeve] Here, Diomed. Keep this sleeve.

Troilus:¶[aside] O beauty, where is thy faith?

Ulysses:¶[aside to Troilus] My lord—

Troilus:¶[aside to Ulysses] 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.

She snatches the sleeve from Diomedes.

Diomedes:¶Whose was ’t?

Cressida:¶It is no matter, now I ha ’t again. I will not meet with you tomorrow night. I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.

Thersites:¶[aside] Now she sharpens. Well said, whetstone.

Diomedes:¶I shall have it.

Cressida:¶What, this?

Diomedes:¶Ay, that.

Cressida:¶O all you gods!—O pretty, pretty pledge! Thy master now lies thinking on his bed Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove, And gives memorial dainty kisses to it As I kiss thee.

He grabs the sleeve, and she tries to retrieve it.

Diomedes:¶Nay, do not snatch it from me.

Cressida:¶He that takes that doth take my heart withal.

Diomedes:¶I had your heart before. This follows it.

Troilus:¶[aside] 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:¶Tomorrow will I wear it on my helm And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.

Troilus:¶[aside] Wert thou the devil and wor’st it on thy horn, It should be challenged.

Cressida:¶Well, well, ’tis done, ’tis past. And yet it is not. I will not keep my word.

Diomedes:¶Why, then, farewell. Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.

He starts to leave.

Cressida:¶You shall not go. One cannot speak a word But it straight starts you.

Diomedes:¶I do not like this fooling.

Troilus:¶[aside] 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.— [He exits.] Troilus, farewell. One eye yet looks on thee, But with my heart the other eye doth see. Ah, poor our sex! This fault in us I find: The error of our eye directs our mind. What error leads must err. O, then conclude: Minds swayed by eyes are full of turpitude.

She exits.

Thersites:¶[aside] A proof of strength she could not publish more, Unless she said "My mind is now turned 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 th’ attest of eyes and ears, As if those organs had deceptious functions, Created only to calumniate. Was Cressid here?

Ulysses:¶I cannot conjure, Trojan.

Troilus:¶She was not, sure.

Ulysses:¶Most sure she was.

Troilus:¶Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.

Ulysses:¶Nor mine, my lord. Cressid was here but now.

Troilus:¶Let it not be believed for womanhood! Think, we had mothers. Do not give advantage To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme For depravation, to square the general sex By Cressid’s rule. Rather, think this not Cressid.

Ulysses:¶What hath she done, prince, that can soil our mothers?

Troilus:¶Nothing at all, unless that this were she.

Thersites:¶[aside] 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! Bifold authority, where reason can revolt Without perdition, and loss assume all reason Without revolt. This is and is not Cressid. Within my soul there doth conduce a fight Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate Divides more wider than the sky and Earth, And yet the spacious breadth of this division Admits no orifex for a point as subtle As Ariachne’s broken woof to enter. Instance, O instance, strong as Pluto’s gates, Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven; Instance, O instance, strong as heaven itself, The bonds of heaven are slipped, dissolved, and loosed, And with another knot, five-finger-tied, The fractions of her faith, orts of her love, The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics Of her o’er-eaten faith are given to Diomed.

Ulysses:¶May worthy Troilus be half attached With that which here his passion doth express?

Troilus:¶Ay, Greek, and that shall be divulgèd well In characters as red as Mars his heart Inflamed with Venus. Never did young man fancy With so eternal and so fixed a soul. Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love, So much by weight hate I her Diomed. That sleeve is mine that he’ll bear 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 clamor Neptune’s ear In his descent than shall my prompted sword Falling on Diomed.

Thersites:¶[aside] He’ll tickle it for his concupy.

Troilus:¶O Cressid! O false Cressid! False, false, false! Let all untruths stand by thy stainèd name, And they’ll seem glorious.

Ulysses:¶O, contain yourself. Your passion draws ears hither.

Enter Aeneas.

Aeneas:¶[to Troilus] 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.

Troilus, Aeneas, and Ulysses exit.

Thersites:¶Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything for the intelligence of this whore. The parrot will not do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery! Nothing else holds fashion. A burning devil take them!

He exits.

Scene 3

Enter Hector, armed, and Andromache.

Andromache:¶When was my lord so much ungently tempered To stop his ears against admonishment? Unarm, unarm, and do not fight today.

Hector:¶You train me to offend you. Get you 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, armed and bloody in intent. Consort with me in loud and dear petition; Pursue we him on knees. For I have dreamt Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.

Cassandra:¶O, ’tis true!

Hector:¶[calling out] Ho! Bid my trumpet sound!

Cassandra:¶No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother!

Hector:¶Begone, I say. The gods have heard me swear.

Cassandra:¶The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows. They are polluted off’rings more abhorred Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.

Andromache:¶[to Hector] 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 honor keeps the weather of my fate. Life every man holds dear, but the dear man Holds honor far more precious-dear than life. [Enter Troilus, armed.] How now, young man? Meanest thou to fight today?

Andromache:¶Cassandra, call my father to persuade.

Cassandra exits.

Hector:¶No, faith, young Troilus, doff thy harness, youth. I am today i’ th’ vein of chivalry. Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong, And tempt not yet the brushes of the war. Unarm thee, go, and doubt thou not, brave boy, I’ll stand today for thee and me and Troy.

Troilus:¶Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you Which better fits a lion than a man.

Hector:¶What vice is that? Good Troilus, chide me for it.

Troilus:¶When many times the captive Grecian falls, Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword, You bid them rise and live.

Hector:¶O, ’tis fair play.

Troilus:¶Fool’s play, by heaven. Hector.

Hector:¶How now? How now?

Troilus:¶For th’ love of all the gods, Let’s leave the hermit Pity with our mother, And when we have our armors buckled on, The venomed Vengeance ride upon our swords, Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth.

Hector:¶Fie, savage, fie!

Troilus:¶Hector, then ’tis wars.

Hector:¶Troilus, I would not have you fight today.

Troilus:¶Who should withhold me? Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars, Beck’ning with fiery truncheon my retire; Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees, Their eyes o’er-gallèd with recourse of tears; Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn Opposed to hinder me, should stop my way, But by my ruin.

Enter Priam and Cassandra.

Cassandra:¶[indicating Hector] Lay hold upon him, Priam; hold him fast. He is thy crutch. Now if thou loose thy stay, Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee, Fall all together.

Priam:¶Come, Hector, come. Go back. Thy wife hath dreamt, thy mother hath had visions, Cassandra doth foresee, and I myself Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt To tell thee that this day is ominous. Therefore, come back.

Hector:¶Aeneas is afield, And I do stand engaged to many Greeks, Even in the faith of valor, 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.

Andromache exits.

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 dolor 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.

She exits.

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!

Hector and Priam exit at separate doors.

Alarum.

Troilus:¶They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe, I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.

Enter Pandarus, with a paper.

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.

He reads.

Pandarus:¶A whoreson phthisic, a whoreson rascally phthisic 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. Th’ effect doth operate another way. Go, wind, to wind! There turn and change together. [He tears up the paper and throws the pieces in the air.] My love with words and errors still she feeds, But edifies another with her deeds.

They exit.

Scene 4

Alarum. Excursions. Enter Thersites.

Thersites:¶Now they are clapper-clawing one another. I’ll go look on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy doting foolish young knave’s sleeve of Troy there in his helm. I would fain see them meet, that that same young Trojan ass that loves the whore there might send that Greekish whoremasterly villain with the sleeve back to the dissembling luxurious drab, of a sleeveless errand. O’ th’ 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 proved not worth a blackberry. They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles. And now is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm today, whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion. [Enter Diomedes, and Troilus pursuing him.] Soft! Here comes sleeve and t’ other.

Thersites moves aside.

Troilus:¶[to Diomedes] 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!

They fight.

Thersites:¶Hold thy whore, Grecian! Now for thy whore, Trojan! Now the sleeve, now the sleeve!

Diomedes and Troilus exit fighting.

Enter Hector.

Hector:¶What art thou, Greek? Art thou for Hector’s match? Art thou of blood and honor?

Thersites:¶No, no, I am a rascal, a scurvy railing knave, a very filthy rogue.

Hector:¶I do believe thee. Live.

He exits.

Thersites:¶God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me! But a plague break thy neck for frighting me! What’s become of the wenching rogues? I think they have swallowed one another. I would laugh at that miracle—yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself. I’ll seek them.

He exits.

Scene 5

Enter Diomedes and Servingman.

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.

Diomedes’ Servingman:¶I go, my lord.

He exits.

Enter Agamemnon.

Agamemnon:¶Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamas Hath beat down Menon; bastard Margareton Hath Doreus prisoner, And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam Upon the pashèd 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, with Soldiers bearing the body of Patroclus.

Nestor:¶Go, bear Patroclus’ body to Achilles, And bid the snail-paced Ajax arm for shame. [Soldiers exit with Patroclus’s body.] There is a thousand Hectors in the field. Now here he fights on Galathe his horse, And here lacks work; anon he’s there afoot And there they fly or die, like scalèd schools Before the belching whale; then is he yonder, And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge, Fall down before him like a mower’s swath. Here, there, and everywhere he leaves and takes, Dexterity so obeying appetite That what he will he does, and does so much That proof is called impossibility.

Enter Ulysses.

Ulysses:¶O, courage, courage, princes! Great Achilles Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance. Patroclus’ wounds have roused his drowsy blood, Together with his mangled Myrmidons, That noseless, handless, hacked and chipped, come to him, Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend And foams at mouth, and he is armed and at it, Roaring for Troilus, who hath done today Mad and fantastic execution, Engaging and redeeming of himself With such a careless force and forceless care As if that luck, in very spite of cunning, Bade him win all.

Enter Ajax.

Ajax:¶Troilus, thou coward Troilus!

He exits.

Diomedes:¶Ay, there, there!

He exits.

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.

He exits, with the others.

Scene 6

Enter Ajax.

Ajax:¶Troilus, thou coward Troilus, show thy head!

Enter Diomedes.

Diomedes:¶Troilus, I say! Where’s Troilus?

Ajax:¶What wouldst thou?

Diomedes:¶I would correct him.

Ajax:¶Were I the General, thou shouldst have my office Ere that correction.—Troilus, I say! What, Troilus!

Enter Troilus.

Troilus:¶O traitor Diomed! Turn thy false face, thou traitor, And pay the life thou owest me for my horse!

Diomedes:¶Ha! Art thou there?

Ajax:¶I’ll fight with him alone. Stand, Diomed.

Diomedes:¶He is my prize. I will not look upon.

Troilus:¶Come, both you cogging Greeks. Have at you both!

Enter Hector.

Troilus exits, fighting Diomedes and Ajax.

Hector:¶Yea, Troilus? O, well fought, my youngest brother!

Enter Achilles.

Achilles:¶Now do I see thee. Ha! Have at thee, Hector!

They fight.

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.

He exits.

Hector:¶Fare thee well. I would have been much more a fresher man Had I expected thee. [Enter Troilus.] How now, my brother?

Troilus:¶Ajax hath ta’en Aeneas. Shall it be? No, by the flame of yonder glorious heaven, He shall not carry him. I’ll be ta’en too Or bring him off. Fate, hear me what I say! I reck not though I end my life today.

He exits.

Enter one in Greek armor.

Hector:¶Stand, stand, thou Greek! Thou art a goodly mark. No? Wilt thou not? I like thy armor well. I’ll frush it and unlock the rivets all, But I’ll be master of it. [The Greek exits.] Wilt thou not, beast, abide? Why then, fly on. I’ll hunt thee for thy hide.

He exits.

Scene 7

Enter Achilles, with Myrmidons.

Achilles:¶Come here about me, you my Myrmidons. Mark what I say. Attend me where I wheel. Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath, And, when I have the bloody Hector found, Empale him with your weapons round about. In fellest manner execute your arms. Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings eye. It is decreed Hector the great must die.

They exit.

Scene 8

Enter Thersites; then Menelaus fighting Paris.

Thersites:¶The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull! Now, dog! Loo, Paris, loo! Now, my double-horned Spartan! Loo, Paris, loo! The bull has the game. Ware horns, ho!

Paris and Menelaus exit, fighting.

Enter Bastard.

Bastard:¶Turn, slave, and fight.

Thersites:¶What art thou?

Bastard:¶A bastard son of Priam’s.

Thersites:¶I am a bastard too. I love bastards. I am bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valor, in everything illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard? Take heed: the quarrel’s most ominous to us. If the son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgment. Farewell, bastard.

He exits.

Bastard:¶The devil take thee, coward!

He exits.

Scene 9

Enter Hector, with the body of the Greek in armor.

Hector:¶Most putrefied core, so fair without, Thy goodly armor thus hath cost thy life. Now is my day’s work done. I’ll take my breath. Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death.

He begins to disarm.

Enter Achilles and his Myrmidons.

Achilles:¶Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set, How ugly night comes breathing at his heels. Even with the vail and dark’ning of the sun To close the day up, Hector’s life is done.

Hector:¶I am unarmed. Forgo this vantage, Greek.

Achilles:¶Strike, fellows, strike! This is the man I seek. [The Myrmidons kill Hector.] So, Ilium, fall thou next! Come, Troy, sink down! Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone. On, Myrmidons, and cry you all amain "Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain." [Retreat sounded from both armies.] Hark! A retire upon our Grecian part.

A Myrmidon:¶The Trojan trumpets sound the like, my lord.

Achilles:¶The dragon wing of night o’erspreads the Earth And, stickler-like, the armies separates. My half-supped sword, that frankly would have fed, Pleased with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed. [He sheathes his sword.] Come, tie his body to my horse’s tail; Along the field I will the Trojan trail.

They exit with the bodies.

Scene 10

Sound retreat. Enter Agamemnon, Ajax, Menelaus, Nestor, Diomedes, and the rest, marching to the beat of drums. Shout within.

Agamemnon:¶Hark, hark, what shout is this?

Nestor:¶Peace, drums!

The drums cease.

Soldiers:¶[within] Achilles! Achilles! Hector’s slain! Achilles!

Diomedes:¶The bruit is Hector’s slain, and by Achilles.

Ajax:¶If it be so, yet bragless let it be. Great Hector was as good a man 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.

They exit, marching.

Scene 11

Enter Aeneas, Paris, Antenor, Deiphobus, and Trojan soldiers.

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.

Aeneas, Paris, Antenor, Deiphobus:¶Hector! The gods forbid!

Troilus:¶He’s dead, and at the murderer’s horse’s tail, In beastly sort, dragged through the shameful field. Frown on, you heavens; effect your rage with speed. Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smite at Troy! I say at once: let your brief plagues be mercy, And linger not our sure destructions on!

Aeneas:¶My lord, you do discomfort all the host.

Troilus:¶You understand me not that tell me so. I do not speak of flight, of fear, of death, But dare all imminence that gods and men Address their dangers in. Hector is gone. Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba? Let him that will a screech-owl aye be called Go into Troy and say their 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 pitched 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 moldeth goblins swift as frenzy’s thoughts. Strike a free march to Troy! With comfort go. Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.

Enter Pandarus.

Pandarus:¶But hear you, hear you!

Troilus:¶Hence, broker, lackey! Ignomy and shame Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name!

All but Pandarus 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 endeavor 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 armèd 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 panders’ 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 gallèd goose of Winchester would hiss. Till then I’ll sweat and seek about for eases, And at that time bequeath you my diseases.

He exits.