Troilus and Cressida
by William Shakespeare
Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine
  with Michael Poston and Rebecca Niles
Folger Shakespeare Library
https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/troilus-and-cressida/
Created on May 11, 2016, from FDT version 0.9.2.1

Characters in the Play
======================
PROLOGUE

The Trojans
PRIAM, king of Troy
CASSANDRA, Priam's daughter, a soothsayer
Priam's sons
  TROILUS
  HECTOR
  PARIS
  HELENUS
  DEIPHOBUS
  BASTARD
ANDROMACHE, Hector's wife
Trojan leaders
  AENEAS
  ANTENOR
TROILUS'S BOY
TROILUS'S MAN
PARIS'S SERVINGMAN
CRESSIDA
CALCHAS, her father
PANDARUS, her uncle
ALEXANDER, her servant

The Greeks
Greek leaders
  AGAMEMNON, the general
  NESTOR
  ULYSSES
  DIOMEDES
  MENELAUS, brother to Agamemnon
  AJAX
  ACHILLES
HELEN, Menelaus's wife and queen
PATROCLUS, Achilles' favorite companion
MYRMIDONS, Achilles' soldiers
THERSITES, cynical critic
DIOMEDES' SERVINGMAN
Other Trojans and Greeks, Common Soldiers of Troy and Greece, Trumpeters, Attendants, Torchbearers

A never writer to an ever reader: news.

Eternal reader, you have here a new play, never staled
with the stage, never clapperclawed with the palms of
the vulgar, and yet passing full of the palm comical, for
it is a birth of your brain that never undertook anything
comical vainly. And were but the vain names of comedies
changed for the titles of commodities, or of plays
for pleas, you should see all those grand censors, that
now style them such vanities, flock to them for the
main grace of their gravities, especially this author’s
comedies, that are so framed to the life that they serve
for the most common commentaries of all the actions
of our lives, showing such a dexterity and power of wit
that the most displeased with plays are pleased with
his comedies. And all such dull and heavy-witted
worldlings as were never capable of the wit of a comedy,
coming by report of them to his representations,
have found that wit there that they never found in
themselves and have parted better witted than they
came, feeling an edge of wit set upon them more than
ever they dreamed they had brain to grind it on. So
much and such savored salt of wit is in his comedies
that they seem, for their height of pleasure, to be born
in that sea that brought forth Venus. Amongst all there
is none more witty than this; and had I time, I would
comment upon it, though I know it needs not, for so
much as will make you think your testern well
bestowed, but for so much worth as even poor I know
to be stuffed in it. It deserves such a labor as well as the
best comedy in Terence or Plautus. And believe this,
that when he is gone and his comedies out of sale, you
will scramble for them and set up a new English
Inquisition. Take this for a warning, and at the peril of
your pleasure’s loss, and judgment’s, refuse not nor like
this the less for not being sullied with the smoky breath
of the multitude, but thank fortune for the scape it
hath made amongst you, since by the grand possessors’
wills I believe you should have prayed for them rather
than been prayed. And so I leave all such to be prayed
for, for the states of their wits’ healths, that will not
praise it. Vale.


[Enter the Prologue in armor.]


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


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 wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,
Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
I have, as when the sun doth light a-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 returned home, and hurt.

TROILUS
By whom, Aeneas?

AENEAS  Troilus, by Menelaus.

TROILUS
Let Paris bleed. 'Tis but a scar to scorn;
Paris is gored with Menelaus' horn.
[Alarum.]

AENEAS
Hark what good sport is out of town today!

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

AENEAS
In all swift haste.

TROILUS  Come, go we then together.
[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.]


BOY  Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.

PANDARUS  Where?

BOY  At your own house. There he unarms him.

PANDARUS  Good boy, tell him I come.	[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 surmised 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 benumbed wills, resist the same,
There is a law in each well-ordered nation
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.
If Helen, then, be wife to Sparta's king,
As it is known she is, these moral laws
Of nature and of nations speak aloud
To have her back returned. Thus to persist
In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,
But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion
Is this in way of truth; yet, ne'ertheless,
My sprightly brethren, I propend to you
In resolution to keep Helen still,
For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependence
Upon our joint and several dignities.

TROILUS
Why, there you touched the life of our design!
Were it not glory that we more affected
Than the performance of our heaving spleens,
I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood
Spent more in her 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 armed 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?

MAN  Ay, sir, when he goes before me.

PANDARUS  You depend upon him, I mean.

MAN  Sir, I do depend upon the Lord.

PANDARUS  You depend upon a notable gentleman. I
must needs praise him.

MAN  The Lord be praised!

PANDARUS  You know me, do you not?

MAN  Faith, sir, superficially.

PANDARUS  Friend, know me better. I am the Lord
Pandarus.

MAN  I hope I shall know your Honor better.

PANDARUS  I do desire it.

MAN  You are in the state of grace?

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

MAN  I do but partly know, sir. It is music in parts.

PANDARUS  Know you the musicians?

MAN  Wholly, sir.

PANDARUS  Who play they to?

MAN  To the hearers, sir.

PANDARUS  At whose pleasure, friend?

MAN  At mine, sir, and theirs that love music.

PANDARUS  Command, I mean, friend.

MAN  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?

MAN  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?

MAN  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.

MAN  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?

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-repured nectar? Death, I fear me,
Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine,
Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness
For the capacity of my ruder powers.
I fear it much; and I do fear besides
That I shall lose distinction in my joys,
As doth a battle when they charge on heaps
The enemy flying.

[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 tamed piece;
You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins
Are pleased to breed out your inheritors.
Both merits poised, each weighs nor less nor more;
But he as he, the heavier for a whore.

PARIS
You are too bitter to your countrywoman.

DIOMEDES
She's bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris:
For every false drop in her bawdy veins
A Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scruple
Of her contaminated carrion weight
A Trojan hath been slain. Since she could speak,
She hath not given so many good words breath
As for her Greeks and Trojans 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 praised 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 appalled 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 sphered bias cheek
Outswell the colic of puffed Aquilon.
Come, stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout blood.
Thou blowest for Hector.	[Sound trumpet.]

ULYSSES
No trumpet answers.

ACHILLES  'Tis but early days.

[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.]

ALL
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 earned 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 divulged well
In characters as red as Mars his heart
Inflamed with Venus. Never did young man fancy
With so eternal and so fixed a soul.
Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love,
So much by weight hate I her Diomed.
That sleeve is mine that he'll bear 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 stained 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-galled 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.

MAN  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 pashed corses of the kings
Epistrophus and Cedius. Polyxenes is slain,
Amphimachus and Thoas deadly hurt,
Patroclus ta'en or slain, and Palamedes
Sore hurt and bruised. The dreadful Sagittary
Appals our numbers. Haste we, Diomed,
To reinforcement, or we perish all.

[Enter Nestor, 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 scaled 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.

ALL  Hector! The gods forbid!

TROILUS
He's dead, and at the murderer's horse's tail,
In beastly sort, dragged through the shameful field.
Frown on, you heavens; effect your rage with speed.
Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and 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 armed tail,
	Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.
Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted
cloths:
As many as be here of 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 galled 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.]
