The Project Gutenberg eBook of Troilus and Cressida

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Title: Troilus and Cressida

Author: William Shakespeare

Release date: December 1, 1997 [eBook #1124]

Most recently updated: September 10, 2025

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ***

THE TRAGEDIE OF

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

The Prologue

In Troy there lyes the Scene: From Iles of Greece

The Princes Orgillous, their high blood chaf’d

Haue to the Port of Athens ſent their ſhippes

Fraught with the miniſters and inſtruments

Of cruell Warre: Sixty and nine that wore

Their Crownets Regall, from th’ Athenian bay

Put forth toward Phrygia, and their vow is made

To ranſacke Troy, within whoſe ſtrong emures

The rauiſh’d Helen, Menelaus Queene,

With wanton Paris sleepes, and that’s the Quarrell.

To Tenedos they come,

And the deepe-drawing Barke do there diſgorge

Their warlike frautage: now on Dardan Plaines

The freſh and yet unbruiſed Greekes do pitch

Their braue Pauillions. Priams ſix-gated City,

Dardan and Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,

And Antenonidus with maſsie Staples

And correſponſiue and fulfilling Bolts

Stirre up the Sonnes of Troy.

Now Expectation tickling skittiſh ſpirits,

On one and other ſide, Troian and Greeke,

Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come,

A Prologue arm’d, but not in confidence

Of Authors pen, or Actors voyce, but ſuited

In like conditions, as our Argument,

To tell you (faire Beholders) that our Play

Leapes ore the vaunt and firſtlings of those broyles,

Beginning in the middle. ſtarting thence away,

To what may be digeſted in a Play:

Like, or finde fault, do as your pleaſures are,

Now good, or bad, ’tis but the chance of Warre.

Actus Primus. Scœna Prima.

Enter Pandarus and Troylus

Troylus. Call here my Varlet, Ile vnarme againe.

Why should I warre without the walls of Troy

That finde ſuch cruell battell here within?

Each Troian that is maſter of his heart,

Let him to field, Troylus, alas hath none.

Pan. Will this geere nere be mended?

Troy. The Greeks are strong, & and skilful to their ſtrength,

Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceneſſe Valiant:

But I am weaker then a womans teare:

Tamer then ſleepe, fonder then ignorance;

Leſſe valiant then the Virgin in the night,

And skillneſſe as vnpractis’d Infancie.

Pan. Well, I haue told you enough of this: For my part, Ile not meddle nor make no farther. Hee that will haue a Cake out of the Wheate muſt needes tarry the grinding.

Troy. Haue I not tarried?

Pan. I the grinding, but you muſt tarry the bolting.

Troy. Haue I not tarried?

Pan. I the bolting; but you muſt tarry the leau’ing.

Troy. Still haue I tarried.

Pan. I to the leauening: but heeres yet in the word hereafter the Kneading, the making of the Cake, the heating of the Ouen, and the Baking; nay, you muſt ſtay the cooling too, or you may chance to burne your lips.

Troy. Patience herſelfe, what Goddeſſe ere ſhe be,

Doth leſſer blench at ſufferance, then I doe:

At Priams Royall Table doe I ſit;

And when faire Creſſid comes into my thoughts,

So (Traitor) then ſhe comes, when ſhe is thence.

Pan. Well:

She look’d yeſternight fairer, then euer I ſaw her looke,

Or any woman eſſe.

Troy. I was about to tell thee, when my heart,

As wedged with a ſigh, would riue in twaine,

Leaſt Hector or my Father ſhould perceiue me:

I haue (as when the Sunne doth light a-ſcorne)

Buried this ſigh, in wrinkle of a ſmile:

But ſorrow, that is couch’d in ſeeming gladneſſe,

Is like that mirth, Fate turnes to ſudden sadneſſe.

Pan. And her haire were not ſomewhat darker then Helens, well go too, there were no more compariſon betweene the Women. But for my part ſhe is my Kinſwoman, I would not (as they tearme it) praiſe it, but I wold ſome-body had heard her talk yeſterday as I did: I will not dispraiſe your ſiſter Caſſandra’s wit, but—

Troy. Oh Pandarus! I tell thee Pandarus;

When I doe tell thee, there my hopes lye drown’d:

Reply not in how many Fadomes deepe

They lye indrench’d. I tell thee, I am mad

In Creſſids loue. Thou anſwer’ſt ſhe is Faire,

Powr’ſt in the open Vlcer of my heart,

Her Eyes, her Haire, her Cheeke, her Gate, her Voice,

Handleſt in thy diſcourſe. O that her Hand

(In whoſe compariſon, all whites are Inke)

Writing their owne reproach; to whoſe ſoft ſeizure,

The Cignets Downe is harſh, and ſpirit of Senſe

Hard as the palme of Plough-man. This thou tel’ſt me;

As true thou tel’ſt me when I ſay I loue her:

But ſaying thus, inſtead of Oyle and Balme,

Thou lai’ſt in euery gaſh that loue hath giuen me,

The Knife that made it.

Pan. I ſpeak no more then truth.

Troy. Thou do’ſt not ſpeake ſo much.

Pan. Faith, Ile not meddle in’t: Let her be as ſhee is, if ſhe be faire, ’tis the better for her, and ſhe be not, ſhe ha’s the mends in her owne hands.

Troy. Good Pandarus: How now, Pandarus?

Pan. I haue had my Labour for my trauell, ill thought on of her, and ill thought on of you; Gone betweene and betweene, but ſmall thankes for my labour.

Troy. What art thou angry Pandarus? what with me?

Pan. Becauſe ſhe’s Kinne to me, therefore ſhee’s not ſo fair as Helen, and ſhe were not kin to me, ſhe would be as faire on Friday, as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not and ſhe were a Black-a Moore, ’tis all one to me.

Troy. Say I ſhe is not faire?

Pan. I doe not care whether you doe or no. Shee’s a Foole to ſtay behinde her Father: Let her to the Greeks, and ſo Ile tell her the next time I ſee her: for my part, Ile meddle nor make no more i’ th’ matter.

Troy. Pandarus?

Pan. Not I.

Troy. Sweete Pandarus.

Pan. Pray you ſpeak no more to me, I will leaue all as I found it, and there an end.

Exit Pand.

Sound Alarum

Tro. Peace you vngracious Clamors, peace rude ſounds,

Fooles on both ſides, Helen muſt needs be faire,

When with your bloud you daily paint her thus.

I cannot fight vpon this Argument:

It is too staru’d a ſubiect for my Sword,

But Pandarus. O Gods! How do you plague me?

I cannot come to Creſſid but by Pandar,

And he’s as teachy to be woo’d to woe,

As ſhe is ſtubborne, chast againſt all ſuite.

Tell me Apollo for thy Daphnes Loue

What Creſſid is, what Pandar, and what we:

Her bed is India, there ſhe lies, a Pearle,

Between our Ilium, and where ſhee recides

Let it be cald the wild and wandring flood,

Our ſelf the Merchant, and this ſayling Pandar,

Our doubtfull hope, our conuoy and our Barke.

Alarum. Enter Æneas.

Æne. How now Prince Troylus?

Wherefore not a field?

Troy. Becauſe not there; this womans anſwer ſorts.

For womaniſh it is to be from thence:

What newes Æneas from the field to day?

Æne. That Paris is returned home, and hurt.

Troy. By whom Æneas?

Æne. Troylus by Menelaus.

Troy. Let Paris bleed, ’tis but a ſcar to ſcorne,

Paris is gor’d with Menelaus horne.

Alarum,

Æne. Harke what good ſport is out of Towne to day.

Troy. Better at home, if would I might were may:

But to the ſport abroad, are you bound thither?

Æne. In all ſwift haſte.

Troy. Come, goe wee then togither.

Exeunt.

Enter Creſſid and her man.

Cre. Who were thoſe went by?

Man. Queen Hecuba, and Hellen.

Cre. And whether go they?

Man. Vp to the Eaſterne Tower,

Whoſe height commands as ſubiect all the vaile,

To ſee the battell: Hector whoſe pacience,

Is as a Vertue fixt, to day was mou’d.

He chides Andromache and ſtrooke his Armorer,

And like as there were husbandry in Warre

Before the Sunne rose, hee was harneſt lyte,

And to the field goe’s he; where euery flower

Did as a Prophet weepe what it foreſaw

In Hectors wrath.

Cre. What was his cauſe of anger?

Man. The noiſe goe’s this;

There is among the Greekes,

A Lord of Troian blood, Nephew to Hector,

They call him Aiax.

Cre. Good; and what of him?

Man. They ſay he is a very man per ſe and stands alone.

Cre. So do all men, vnleſſe they are drunke, ſicke, or haue no legges.

Man. This man Lady, hath rob’d many beaſts of their particular additions, he is as valiant as the Lyon, churliſh as the Beare, ſlow as the Elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humors, that his valour is cruſht into folly, his folly ſauced with diſcretion: there is no man hath a vertue, that he hath not a glimpſe of, nor any man an attaint, but he carries ſome ſtaine of it. He is melancholy without cauſe, and merry againſt the haire, hee hath the ioynts of euery thing, but euery thing ſo out of ioynt, that hee is a gowtie Briareus, many hands and no vſe; or purblinded Argus, all eyes and no ſight.

Cre. But how ſhould this man that makes me ſmile, make Hector angry?

Man. They ſay he yeſterday cop’d Hector in the battle and ſtroke him downe, the diſdaind & ſhame whereof, hath euer since kept Hector fasting and waking.

Enter Pandarus.

Cre. Who comes here?

Man. Madam your Vncle Pandarus.

Cre. Hectors a gallant man.

Man. As may be in the world Lady.

Pan. What’s that? what’s that?

Cre. Good morrow Vncle Pandarus.

Pan. Good morrow Cozen Creſſid: what do you talke of? good morrow Alexander. how do you Cozen? when were you at Illium?

Cre. This morning Vncle.

Pan. What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector arm’d and gon ere yea came to Illium? Hellen was not vp? was ſhe?

Cre. Hector was gone but Hellen was not up?

Pan. E’ene ſo; Hector was ſtirring early.

Cre. That were we talking of and of his anger.

Pan. Was he angry?

Cre. So he ſaies here.

Pan. True, he was ſo; I know the cauſe too, heele lay about him to day I can tell them that and there’s Troylus will not come farre behind him, let them take heede of Troylus; I can tell them that too.

Cre. What, is he angry too?

Pan. Who, Troylus?

Troylus is the better man of the two.

Cre. Oh Iupiter; there’s no compariſon.

Pan. What not betweene Troylus and Hector? do you know a man if you ſee him?

Cre. I, if I euer ſaw him before and knew him.

Pan. Well, I ſay Troylus is Troylus.

Cre. Then you ſay as I ſay,

For I am ſure he is not Hector.

Pan. No not Hector is not Troylus in ſome degrees.

Cre. ’Tis just to each of them he is himſelfe.

Pan. Himſelfe? alas, poore Troylus I would he were.

Cre. So he is.

Pan. Condition I had gone bare-foote to India.

Cre. He is not Hector.

Pan. Himſelfe? no? hee’s not himſselfe, would a were himſelfe: well, the Gods are aboue, time muſt friend or end: well Troylus well, I would my heart were in her body; no, Hector is not a better man then Troylus.

Cre. Excuſe me.

Pan. He is elder.

Cre. Pardon me, pardon me.

Pan. Th’others not come too’t, you ſhall tell me another tale when th’others come too’t: Hector ſhall not haue his will this yeare.

Cre. He ſhall not neede it if he haue his owne.

Pan. Nor his qualities.

Cre. No matter.

Pan. Nor his beautie.

Cre. ’Twould not become him, his own’s better.

Pan. You haue no iudgment Neece; Hellen her ſelfe ſwore th’other day that Troylus for a browne favour (for ſo ’tis I must confeſſe) not browne neither.

Cre. No, but browne.

Pan. Faith, to ſay truth, browne and not browne.

Cre. To ſay the truth, true and not true.

Pan. She prais’d his complexion above Paris.

Cre. Why Paris hath colour inough.

Pan. So he has.

Cre. Then Troylus should haue too much, if ſhe prasi’d him aboue, his complexion is higher then his, he hauing colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praiſe for a good complexion. I had as lieue Hellens golden tongue had commended Troylus for a copper noſe.

Pan. I ſweare to you,

I think Hellen loues him better then Paris.

Cre. Then ſhee’s a merry Greeke indeed.

Pan. Nay I am ſure ſhe does, ſhe came to him th’other day into the compaſt window, and you know he has not paſt three or foure haires on his chinne.

Cre. Indeed a Tapsters Arithmetique may ſoone bring his particulars therein to a totall.

Pan. Why he is very yong, and yet will he within three pound lift as much as his brother Hector.

Cre. Is he ſo young a man, and ſo old a lifter?

Pan. But to prooue to you that Hellen loues him, ſhe came and puts me her white hand to his clouen chin.

Cre. Juno haue mercy, how came it clouen?

Pan. Why, you know ’tis dimpled,

I thinke his ſmyling becomes him better then any man in all Phrigia.

Cre. Oh he ſmiles valiantly.

Pan. Dooes hee not?

Cre. Oh yes, and ’twere a clow’d in Autumne.

Pan. Why go to then, but to proue to you that Hellen loues Troylus.

Cre. Troylus will ſtand to thee

Proofe, if youle prooue it ſo.

Pan. Troylus? why he eſteemes her no more then I eſteeme an addle egge.

Cre. If you loue an addle egge as well as you loue an idle head, you would eate chickens i’ th’ ſhell.

Pan. I cannot chuſe but laugh to thinke how ſhe tickled his chin, indeed ſhee has a maruel’s white hand I muſt needs confeſſe.

Cre. Without the racke.

Pan. And ſhee takes vpon her to ſpie a white haire on his chinne.

Cre. Alas poore chin? many a wart is richer.

Pan. But there was ſuch laughing, Queen Hecuba laught that her eyes ran ore.

Cre. With Milſtones.

Pan. And Caſſandra laught.

Cre. But there was a more temperate fire vnder the pot of her eyes: did her eyes run ore too?

Pan. And Hector laught.

Cre. At what was all this laughing?

Pan. Marry at the white haire that Hellen ſpied on Troylus chin.

Cre. And t’had beene a greene haire, I ſhould haue laught too.

Pan. They laught not ſo much at the haire, as at his pretty anſwere.

Cre. What was his anſwere?

Pan. Quoth ſhee, heere’s but two and fifty haires on your chinne; and one of them is white.

Cre. This is her queſtion.

Pand. That’s true, make no queſtion of that, two and fiftie haires quoth hee, and one white, that white haire is my Father, and all the reſt are his Sonnes. Iupiter quoth ſhe, which of theſe haires is Paris my husband? The forked one quoth he, pluckt out and giue it him: but there was ſuch laughing, and Hellen so bluſht, and Paris ſo chaft, and all the reſt ſo laught, that it paſt.

Cre. So let it now,

For it has beene a great while going by.

Pan. Well, Cozen,

I told you a thing yeſterday, think on’t.

Cre. So I does.

Pan. Ile be ſworne ’tis true, he will weepe you an ’twere a man borne in Aprill.

Sound a retreat.

Cre. And Ile ſpring vp in his teares, an ’twere a nettle againſt May.

Pan. Harke they are comming from the field, shal we ſtand vp here and ſee them, as they paſſe toward Illium, good Neece do, ſweet Neece Creſſida.

Cre. At your pleaſure.

Pan. Heere, heere, here’s an excellent place, heere we may ſee moſt brauely, Ile tel you them all by their names, as they paſſe by, but mark Troylus aboue the reſt.

Enter Æneas.

Cre. Speake not ſo low’d.

Pan. That’s Æneas. is not that a braue man, hee’s one of the flowers of Troy I can you, but merke Troylus. you ſhall ſee anon.

Cre. Who’s that?

Enter Antenor.

Pan. That’s Antenor, he has a ſhrow’d wit I can tell you, and hee’s a man good inough, hee’s one o’th ſoundeſt iudgment in Troy whoſoeuer, and a proper man of perſon: when comes Troylus? Ile ſhew you Troylus anon, if hee ſee me, you ſhall ſee him nod at me.

Cre. Will he giue you the nod?

Pan. You ſhall ſee.

Cre. If he do, the rich ſhall haue more.

Enter Hector.

Pan. That’s Hector, that, that, looke you, that there’s a fellow. Goe thy way Hector, there’s a braue man Neece, O braue Hector! Looke how hee lookes? there’s a countenance; iſt not a braue man?

Cre. O braue man!

Pan. Is a not? It dooes a mans heart good, looke you what hacks are on his Helmet. looke you yonder, do you ſee? Looke you there? There’s no ieſting, laying on, tak’t off, who ill as they ſay, there be hacks.

Cre. Be thoſe with Swords?

Enter Paris.

Pan. Swords, any thing, he cares not, and the diuell come to him, it’s all one, by Gods lid it dooes ones heart good. Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris: looke yee yonder Neece, iſt not a gallant man to, iſt not? Why this is braue now: who ſaid he came hurt home to day? Hee’s not hurt, why this will do Hellens heart good now, ha? Would I could ſee Troylus now, you ſhall Troylus anon.

Cre. Whoſe that

Enter Hellenus.

Pan. That’s Hellenus, I maruell where Troylus is, that’s Helenus, I thinke he went not forth to day: that’s Hellenus.

Cre. Can Hellenus fight, Vncle?

Pan. Hellenus no: yes heele fight indifferent, well, I maruell where Troylus is; harke, do you not heare the people crie Troylus? Hellenus is a Prieſt.

Cre. What ſneaking fellow comes yonder?

Enter Troylus

Pan. Where? Yonder? That’s Daphobus. ’Tis Troylus! Ther’s a man Neece, hem; Braue Troylus, the Prince of Chiualrie.

Cre. Peace, for ſhame, peace.

Pan. Marke him, not him: O braue Troylus: looke well vpon him Neece, looke you how his Sword is bloudied, and his Helme more hackt than Hectors, and how he lookes, and how he goes. O admirable youth! he ne’er ſaw three and twenty. Go thy way Troylus, go thy way, had I a ſiſter were a Grace, or a daughter a Goddeſſe, hee ſhould take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris is durt to him, and, I warrant, Helen to change, would giue money to boot.

Enter common Soldiers.

Cre. Heere come more.

Pan. Aſſes, fooles, dolts, chaff and bran, chaffe and bran; porredge after meat. I could liue and dye i’ th’ eyes of Troylus. Ne’re looke, ne’re looke; the Eagles are gon, Crowes and Dawes, Crowes and Dawes: I had rather be ſuch a man as Troylus, then Agamemnon and all Greece.

Cre. There is among the Greekes Achilles, a better man then Troylus.

Pan. Achilles? A Dray-man, a Porter, a very Camell.

Cre. Well well.

Pan. Well, well? Why haue you any diſcretion? haue you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good ſhape, diſcourſe, manhood, learning, gentleneſſe, vertue, youth, liberality, and ſo forth; the Spice, and ſalt that ſeaſon a man?

Cre. I, a minc’d man and then to be bak’d with no Date in the pye, for then the man’s dates out.

Pan. You are ſuch another woman, one knowes not at what ward you lye.

Cre. Vpon my backe, to defend my belly; vpon my wit, to defend my wiles; vppon my ſecrecy, to defend mine honeſty; my Maske, to defend my beauty, and you to defend all theſe: and at all theſe wardes I lye at, at a thouſand watches.

Pan. Say one of your watches.

Cre. Nay Ile watch you for that, and that’s one of the cheefeſt of them too. If I cannot ward what I would not haue hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow, unleſſ it ſwell paſt hiding, and then it’s paſt watching

Enter Boy.

Pan. You are ſuch another.

Boy. Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.

Pan. Where?

Boy. At your own house; there he unarms him.

Pan. Good boy, tell him I come. Exit Boy I doubt he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece.

Cre. Adieu, uncle.

Pan. I will be with you, niece, by and by.

Cre. To bring, uncle.

Pan. Ay, a token from Troylus.

Exit

Cre. By the same token, you are a bawd.

Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love’s full sacrifice,

He offers in another’s enterprise;

But more in Troylus thousand-fold I see

Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be,

Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:

Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.

That she belov’d knows nought that knows not this:

Men prize the thing ungain’d more than it is.

That she was never yet that ever knew

Love got so sweet as when desire did sue;

Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:

Achievement is command; ungain’d, beseech.

Then though my heart’s content firm love doth bear,

Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

Exit

Sennet. Enter Agamemnon, Nestor, Vlyſſes, Diomedes, Menelaus, and others

Agam. Princes,

What grief hath set these jaundies o’er your cheeks?

The ample proposition that hope makes

In all designs begun on earth below

Fails in the promis’d largeness; checks and disasters

Grow in the veins of actions highest rear’d,

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 abash’d behold our works

And call them shames, which are, indeed, nought else

But the protractive trials of great Jove

To find persistive constancy in men;

The fineness of which metal is not found

In fortune’s love? For then the bold and coward,

The wise and fool, the artist and unread,

The hard and soft, seem all affin’d and kin.

But in the wind and tempest of her frown

Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,

Puffing at all, winnows the light away;

And what hath mass or matter by itself

Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.

Nestor. With due observance of thy godlike seat,

Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply

Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance

Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth,

How many shallow bauble boats dare sail

Upon her patient breast, making their way

With those of nobler bulk!

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage

The gentle Thetis, and anon behold

The strong-ribb’d bark through liquid mountains cut,

Bounding between the two moist elements

Like Perseus’ horse. Where’s then the saucy boat,

Whose weak untimber’d sides but even now

Co-rivall’d greatness? Either to harbour fled

Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so

Doth valour’s show and valour’s worth divide

In storms of fortune; for in her ray and brightness

The herd hath more annoyance by the breeze

Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind

Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

And flies fled under shade-why, then the thing of courage

As rous’d with rage, with rage doth sympathise,

And with an accent tun’d in self-same key

Retorts to chiding fortune.

Vlyſ. Agamemnon,

Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,

Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit

In whom the tempers and the minds of all

Should be shut up-hear what Vlyſſes speaks.

Besides the applause and approbation

The which, [To Agamemnon] most mighty, for thy place and sway,

[To Nestor] And, thou most reverend, for thy stretch’d-out life,

I give to both your speeches- which were such

As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece

Should hold up high in brass; and such again

As venerable Nestor, hatch’d in silver,

Should with a bond of air, strong as the axle-tree

On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears

To his experienc’d tongue-yet let it please both,

Thou great, and wise, to hear Vlyſſes speak.

Agam. 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.

Vlyſ. Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,

And the great Hector’s sword had lack’d a master,

But for these instances:

The specialty of rule hath been neglected;

And look how many Grecian tents do stand

Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.

When that the general is not like the hive,

To whom the foragers shall all repair,

What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,

Th’ unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,

Observe degree, priority, and place,

Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,

Office, and custom, in all line of order;

And therefore is the glorious planet Sol

In noble eminence enthron’d and spher’d

Amidst the other, whose med’cinable eye

Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,

And posts, like the commandment of a king,

Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets

In evil mixture to disorder wander,

What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,

What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,

Commotion in the winds! Frights, changes, horrors,

Divert and crack, rend and deracinate,

The unity and married calm of states

Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shak’d,

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 primogenity and due of birth,

Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,

But by degree, stand in authentic place?

Take but degree away, untune that string,

And hark what discord follows! Each thing melts

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 disdain’d

By him one step below, he by the next,

That next by him beneath; so ever step,

Exampl’d 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 Vlyſſes here discover’d

The fever whereof all our power is sick.

Agam. The nature of the sickness found, Vlyſſes,

What is the remedy?

Vlyſ. The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns

The sinew and the forehand of our host,

Having his ear full of his airy fame,

Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent

Lies mocking our designs; with him Patroclus

Upon a lazy bed the livelong day

Breaks scurril jests;

And with ridiculous and awkward action-

Which, slanderer, he imitation calls-

He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,

Thy topless deputation he puts on;

And like a strutting player whose conceit

Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich

To hear the wooden dialogue and sound

’Twixt his stretch’d footing and the scaffoldage-

Such to-be-pitied and o’er-wrested seeming

He acts thy greatness in; and when he speaks

’Tis like a chime a-mending; with terms unsquar’d,

Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp’d,

Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff

The large Achilles, on his press’d bed lolling,

From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;

Cries ‘Excellent! ’tis Agamemnon just.

Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,

As he being drest to some oration.’

That’s done-as near as the extremest ends

Of parallels, as like Vulcan and his wife;

Yet god Achilles still cries ‘Excellent!

’Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus,

Arming to answer in a night alarm.’

And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age

Must be the scene of mirth: to cough and spit

And, with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget,

Shake in and out the rivet. And at this sport

Sir Valour dies; cries ‘O, enough, Patroclus;

Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all

In pleasure of my spleen.’ And in this fashion

All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,

Severals and generals of grace exact,

Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,

Excitements to the field or speech for truce,

Success or loss, what is or is not, serves

As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.

Nestor. And in the imitation of these twain-

Who, as Vlyſſes says, opinion crowns

With an imperial voice-many are infect.

Aiax is grown self-will’d and bears his head

In such a rein, in full as proud a place

As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him;

Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war

Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites,

A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint,

To match us in comparisons with dirt,

To weaken and discredit our exposure,

How rank soever rounded in with danger.

Vlyſ. They tax our policy and call it cowardice,

Count wisdom as no member of the war,

Forestall prescience, and esteem no act

But that of hand. The still and mental parts

That do contrive how many hands shall strike

When fitness calls them on, and know, by measure

Of their observant toil, the enemies’ weight-

Why, this hath not a finger’s dignity:

They call this bed-work, 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]

Agam. What trumpet? Look, Menelaus.

Men. From Troy.

Enter Æneas

Agam. What would you fore our tent?

Æne. Is this great Agamemnon’s tent, I pray you?

Agam. Even this.

Æne. May one that is a herald and a prince

Do a fair message to his kingly eyes?

Agam. With surety stronger than Achilles’ an

Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice

Call Agamemnon head and general.

Æne. Fair leave and large security. How may

A stranger to those most imperial looks

Know them from eyes of other mortals?

Agam. How?

Æne. 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?

Agam. This Troian scorns us, or the men of Troy

Are ceremonious courtiers.

Æne. Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm’d,

As bending angels; that’s their fame in peace.

But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls,

Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and, Jove’s accord,

Nothing so full of heart. But peace, Æneas,

Peace, Troian; lay thy finger on thy lips.

The worthiness of praise distains his worth,

If that the prais’d himself bring the praise forth;

But what the repining enemy commends,

That breath fame blows; that praise, sole pure, transcends.

Agam. Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Æneas?

Æne. Ay, Greek, that is my name.

Agam. What’s your affair, I pray you?

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

Agam. He hears nought privately that comes from Troy.

Æne. 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.

Agam. Speak frankly as the wind;

It is not Agamemnon’s sleeping hour.

That thou shalt know, Troian, he is awake,

He tells thee so himself.

Æne. 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 honour higher than his ease,

That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril,

That knows his valour and knows not his fear,

That loves his mistress more than in confession

With truant vows to her own lips he loves,

And dare avow her beauty and her worth

In other arms than hers-to him this challenge.

Hector, in view of Troians 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 to-morrow with his trumpet call

Mid-way between your tents and walls of Troy

To rouse a Grecian that is true in love.

If any come, Hector shall honour him;

If none, he’ll say in Troy, when he retires,

The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth

The splinter of a lance. Even so much.

Agam. This shall be told our lovers, Lord Æneas.

If none of them have soul in such a kind,

We left them all at home. But we are soldiers;

And may that soldier a mere recreant prove

That means not, hath not, or is not in love.

If then one is, or hath, or means to be,

That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he.

Nestor. Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man

When Hector’s grandsire suck’d. He is old now;

But if there be not in our Grecian mould

One noble man that hath one spark of fire

To answer for his love, tell him from me

I’ll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver,

And in my vantbrace put this wither’d brawn,

And, meeting him, will tell him that my lady

Was fairer than his grandame, and as chaste

As may be in the world. His youth in flood,

I’ll prove this truth with my three drops of blood.

Æne. Now heavens forfend such scarcity of youth!

Vlyſ. Amen.

Agam. Fair Lord Æneas, let me touch your hand;

To our pavilion shall I lead you, first.

Achilles shall have word of this intent;

So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent.

Yourself shall feast with us before you go,

And find the welcome of a noble foe.

Exeunt all but Vlyſſes and Nestor Vlyſſes. Nestor!

Nestor. What says Vlyſſes?

Vlyſ. I have a young conception in my brain;

Be you my time to bring it to some shape.

Nestor. What is’t?

Vlyſ. This ’tis:

Blunt wedges rive hard knots. The seeded pride

That hath to this maturity blown up

In rank Achilles must or now be cropp’d

Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil

To overbulk us all.

Nestor. Well, and how?

Vlyſ. 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 even as substance

Whose grossness little characters sum up;

And, in the publication, make no strain

But that Achilles, were his brain as barren

As banks of Libya-though, Apollo knows,

’Tis dry enough-will with great speed of judgement,

Ay, with celerity, find Hector’s purpose

Pointing on him.

Vlyſ. And wake him to the answer, think you?

Nestor. Why, ’tis most meet. Who may you else oppose

That can from Hector bring those honours off,

If not Achilles? Though ’t be a sportful combat,

Yet in this trial much opinion dwells;

For here the Troians taste our dear’st repute

With their fin’st palate; and trust to me, Vlyſſes,

Our imputation shall be oddly pois’d

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 mas

Of things to come at large. It is suppos’d

He that meets Hector issues from our choice;

And choice, being mutual act of all our souls,

Makes merit her election, and doth boil,

As ’twere from forth us all, a man distill’d

Out of our virtues; who miscarrying,

What heart receives from hence a conquering part,

To steel a strong opinion to themselves?

Which entertain’d, limbs are his instruments,

In no less working than are swords and bows

Directive by the limbs.

Vlyſ. Give pardon to my speech.

Therefore ’tis meet Achilles meet not Hector.

Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares

And think perchance they’ll sell; if not, the lustre

Of the better yet to show shall show the better,

By showing the worst first. Do not consent

That ever Hector and Achilles meet;

For both our honour and our shame in this

Are dogg’d with two strange followers.

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

Vlyſ. What glory our Achilles shares from Hector,

Were he not proud, we all should wear 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 foil’d,

Why, then we do our main opinion crush

In taint of our best man. No, make a lott’ry;

And, by device, let blockish Aiax 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 Aiax 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-

Aiax employ’d plucks down Achilles’ plumes.

Nestor. Now, Vlyſſes, 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 tarre the mastiffs on, as ’twere their bone.

Exeunt

Enter Aiax and Thersites

Aiax. Thersites!

Ther. Agamemnon-how if he had boils full, an over, generally?

Aiax. Thersites!

Ther. And those boils did run-say so. Did not the general run then? Were not that a botchy core?

Aiax. Dog!

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

Aiax. Thou bitch-wolf’s son, canst thou not hear? Feel, then.

[Strikes him]

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

Aiax. Speak, then, thou whinid’st leaven, speak. I will beat thee into handsomeness.

Ther. 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!

Aiax. Toadstool, learn me the proclamation.

Ther. Dost thou think I have no sense, thou strikest me thus?

Aiax. The proclamation!

Ther. Thou art proclaim’d, a fool, I think.

Aiax. Do not, porpentine, do not; my fingers itch.

Ther. 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.

Aiax. I say, the proclamation.

Ther. 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.

Aiax. Mistress Thersites!

Ther. Thou shouldst strike him.

Aiax. Cobloaf!

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

Aiax. You whoreson cur! [Strikes him]

Ther. Do, do.

Aiax. Thou stool for a witch!

Ther. Ay, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows; an assinico may tutor thee. You scurvy valiant ass! Thou art here but to thrash Troians, 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!

Aiax. You dog!

Ther. You scurvy lord!

Aiax. You cur! [Strikes him]

Ther. Mars his idiot! Do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do.

Enter Achilles and Patroclus

Achil. Why, how now, Aiax! Wherefore do you thus?

How now, Thersites! What’s the matter, man?

Ther. You see him there, do you?

Achil. Ay; what’s the matter?

Ther. Nay, look upon him.

Achil. So I do. What’s the matter?

Ther. Nay, but regard him well.

Achil. Well! why, so I do.

Ther. But yet you look not well upon him; for who some ever you take him to be, he is Aiax.

Achil. I know that, fool.

Ther. Ay, but that fool knows not himself.

Aiax. Therefore I beat thee.

Ther. Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! His evasions have ears thus long. I have bobb’d 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, Aiax-who wears his wit in his belly and his guts in his head-I’ll tell you what I say of him.

Achil. What?

Ther. I say this Aiax- [Aiax offers to strike him]

Achil. Nay, good Aiax.

Ther. Has not so much wit-

Achil. Nay, I must hold you.

Ther. As will stop the eye of Helen’s needle, for whom he comes to fight.

Achil. Peace, fool.

Ther. I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not- he there; that he; look you there.

Aiax. O thou damned cur! I shall-

Achil. Will you set your wit to a fool’s?

Ther. No, I warrant you, the fool’s will shame it.

Patr. Good words, Thersites.

Achil. What’s the quarrel?

Aiax. I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenour of the proclamation, and he rails upon me.

Ther. I serve thee not.

Aiax. Well, go to, go to.

Ther. I serve here voluntary.

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

Ther. 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: ’a were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.

Achil. What, with me too, Thersites?

Ther. There’s Vlyſſes and old Nestor-whose wit was mouldy ere your grandsires had nails on their toes-yoke you like draught oxen, and make you plough up the wars.

Achil. What, what?

Ther. Yes, good sooth. To Achilles, to Aiax, to-

Aiax. I shall cut out your tongue.

Ther. ’Tis no matter; I shall speak as much as thou afterwards.

Patr. No more words, Thersites; peace!

Ther. I will hold my peace when Achilles’ brach bids me, shall I?

Achil. There’s for you, Patroclus.

Ther. I will see you hang’d like clotpoles ere I come any more to your tents. I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools. Exit

Patr. A good riddance.

Achil. Marry, this, sir, is proclaim’d through all our host,

That Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun,

Will with a trumpet ’twixt our tents and Troy,

To-morrow morning, call some knight to arms

That hath a stomach; and such a one that dare

Maintain I know not what; ’tis trash. Farewell.

Aiax. Farewell. Who shall answer him?

Achil. I know not; ’tis put to lott’ry. Otherwise. He knew his man.

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

Exeunt

Enter Priam, Hector, Troylus, Paris, and Hellenus

Pri. After so many hours, lives, speeches, spent,

Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:

‘Deliver Helen, and all damage else-

As honour, loss of time, travail, expense,

Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consum’d

In hot digestion of this cormorant war-

Shall be struck off.’ Hector, what say you to’t?

Hect. Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I,

As far as toucheth my particular,

Yet, dread Priam,

There is no lady of more softer bowels,

More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,

More ready to cry out ‘Who knows what follows?’

Than Hector is. The wound of peace is surety,

Surety secure; but modest doubt is call’d

The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches

To 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?

Troy. Fie, fie, my brother!

Weigh you the worth and honour 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!

Hel. No marvel though you bite so sharp at reasons,

You are so empty of them. Should not our father

Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons,

Because your speech hath none that tells him so?

Troy. You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest;

You fur your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons:

You know an enemy intends you harm;

You know a sword employ’d is perilous,

And reason flies the object of all harm.

Who marvels, then, when Helenus beholds

A Grecian and his sword, if he do set

The very wings of reason to his heels

And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,

Or like a star disorb’d? Nay, if we talk of reason,

Let’s shut our gates and sleep. Manhood and honour

Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their thoughts

With this cramm’d reason. Reason and respect

Make livers pale and lustihood deject.

Hect. Brother, she is not worth what she doth, cost

The keeping.

Troy. What’s aught but as ’tis valued?

Hect. 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-I

And the will dotes that is attributive

To what infectiously itself affects,

Without some image of th’ affected merit.

Troy. I take to-day a wife, and my election

Is led on in the conduct of my will;

My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,

Two traded pilots ’twixt the dangerous shores

Of will and judgement: how may I avoid,

Although my will distaste what it elected,

The wife I chose? There can be no evasion

To blench from this and to stand firm by honour.

We turn not back the silks upon the merchant

When we have soil’d them; nor the remainder viands

We do not throw in unrespective sieve,

Because we now are full. It was thought meet

Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks;

Your breath with full consent benied his sails;

The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce,

And did him service. He touch’d the ports desir’d;

And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive

He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness

Wrinkles Apollo’s, and makes stale the morning.

Why keep we her? The Grecians keep our aunt.

Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl

Whose price hath launch’d above a thousand ships,

And turn’d crown’d kings to merchants.

If you’ll avouch ’twas wisdom Paris went-

As you must needs, for you all cried ‘Go, go’-

If you’ll confess he brought home worthy prize-

As you must needs, for you all clapp’d your hands,

And cried ‘Inestimable!’ -why do you now

The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,

And do a deed that never fortune did-

Beggar the estimation which you priz’d

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!

Caſ. [Within] Cry, Troians, cry.

Pri. What noise, what shriek is this?

Troy. ’Tis our mad sister; I do know her voice.

Caſ. [Within] Cry, Troians.

Hect. It is Caſſandra.

Enter Caſſandra, raving

Caſ. Cry, Troians, cry. Lend me ten thousand eyes,

And I will fill them with prophetic tears.

Hect. Peace, sister, peace.

Caſ. Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld,

Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,

Add to my clamours. Let us pay betimes

A moiety of that mass of moan to come.

Cry, Troians, cry. Practise your eyes with tears.

Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;

Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.

Cry, Troians, cry, A Helen and a woe!

Cry, cry. Troy burns, or else let Helen go.

Exit

Hect. Now, youthful Troylus, 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?

Troy. Why, brother Hector,

We may not think the justness of each act

Such and no other than event doth form it;

Nor once deject the courage of our minds

Because Caſſandra’s mad. Her brain-sick raptures

Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel

Which hath our several honours all engag’d

To make it gracious. For my private part,

I am no more touch’d than all Priam’s sons;

And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us

Such things as might offend the weakest spleen

To fight for and maintain.

Par. 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 of

All fears attending on so dire a project.

For what, alas, can these my single arms?

What propugnation is in one man’s valour

To stand the push and enmity of those

This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest,

Were I alone to pass the difficulties,

And had as ample power as I have will,

Paris should ne’er retract what he hath done

Nor faint in the pursuit.

Pri. 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.

Par. 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

Wip’d off in honourable keeping her.

What treason were it to the ransack’d queen,

Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,

Now to deliver her possession up

On terms of base compulsion! Can it be

That so degenerate a strain as this

Should once set footing in your generous bosoms?

There’s not the meanest spirit on our party

Without a heart to dare or sword to draw

When Helen is defended; nor none so noble

Whose life were ill bestow’d or death unfam’d

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.

Hect. Paris and Troylus, you have both said well;

And on the cause and question now in hand

Have gloz’d, but superficially; not much

Unlike young men, whom Aristode thought

Unfit to hear moral philosophy.

The reasons you allege do more conduce

To the hot passion of distemp’red 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 rend’red to their owners. Now,

What nearer debt in all humanity

Than wife is to the husband? If this law

Of nature be corrupted through affection;

And that great minds, of partial indulgence

To their benumbed wills, resist the same;

There is a law in each well-order’d nation

To curb those raging appetites that are

Most disobedient and refractory.

If Helen, then, be wife to Sparta’s king-

As it is known she is-these moral laws

Of nature and of nations speak aloud

To have her back return’d. Thus to persist

In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,

But makes it much more heavy. Hector’s opinion

Is this, in way of truth. Yet, ne’er the less,

My spritely 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.

Troy. Why, there you touch’d the life of our design.

Were it not glory that we more affected

Than the performance of our heaving spleens,

I would not wish a drop of Troian blood

Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,

She is a theme of honour and renown,

A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,

Whose present courage may beat down our foes,

And fame in time to come canonize us;

For I presume brave Hector would not lose

So rich advantage of a promis’d glory

As smiles upon the forehead of this action

For the wide world’s revenue.

Hect. 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 advertis’d their great general slept,

Whilst emulation in the army crept.

This, I presume, will wake him.

Exeunt

Enter Thersites, solus

Ther. How now, Thersites! What, lost in the labyrinth of thy fury? Shall the elephant Aiax 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 rail’d 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 engineer! If Troy be not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till they fall of themselves. O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods, and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus, if ye take not that little little less-than-little wit from them that they have! which short-arm’d 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!

Enter Patroclus

Patr. Who’s there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail.

Ther. If I could ’a rememb’red a gilt counterfeit, thou wouldst not have slipp’d out of my contemplation; but it is no matter; thyself upon thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue! Heaven bless thee from a tutor, and discipline come not near thee! Let thy blood be thy direction till thy death. Then if she that lays thee out says thou art a fair corse, I’ll be sworn and sworn upon’t she never shrouded any but lazars. Amen. Where’s Achilles?

Patr. What, art thou devout? Wast thou in prayer?

Ther. Ay, the heavens hear me!

Patr. Amen.

Enter Achilles

Achil. Who’s there?

Patr. Thersites, my lord.

Achil. Where, where? O, where? Art thou come? Why, my cheese, my digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to my table so many meals? Come, what’s Agamemnon?

Ther. Thy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what’s Achilles?

Patr. Thy lord, Thersites. Then tell me, I pray thee, what’s Thersites?

Ther. Thy knower, Patroclus. Then tell me, Patroclus, what art thou?

Patr. Thou must tell that knowest.

Achil. O, tell, tell,

Ther. I’ll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands Achilles; Achilles is my lord; I am Patroclus’ knower; and Patroclus is a fool.

Patr. You rascal!

Ther. Peace, fool! I have not done.

Achil. He is a privileg’d man. Proceed, Thersites.

Ther. Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a fool; and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.

Achil. Derive this; come.

Ther. 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.

Patr. Why am I a fool?

Ther. Make that demand of the Creator. It suffices me thou art. Look you, who comes here?

Achil. Come, Patroclus, I’ll speak with nobody. Come in with me, Thersites.

Exit

Ther. 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!

Exit

Enter Agamemnon, Vlyſſes, Nestor, Diomedes, Aiax, and Chalcas

Agam. Where is Achilles?

Patr. Within his tent; but ill-dispos’d, my lord.

Agam. Let it be known to him that we are here.

He shent our messengers; and we lay by

Our appertainings, 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.

Patr. I shall say so to him.

Exit

Vlyſ. We saw him at the opening of his tent.

He is not sick.

Aiax. Yes, lion-sick, sick of proud heart. You may call it

melancholy, if you will favour the man; but, by my head, ’tis

pride. But why, why? Let him show us a cause. A word, my lord.

[Takes Agamemnon aside]

Nestor. What moves Aiax thus to bay at him?

Vlyſ. Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him.

Nestor. Who, Thersites?

Vlyſ. He.

Nestor. Then will Aiax lack matter, if he have lost his argument

Vlyſ. 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!

Vlyſ. The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.

Re-enter Patroclus

Here comes Patroclus.

Nestor. No Achilles with him.

Vlyſ. The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs

are legs for necessity, not for flexure.

Patr. Achilles bids me say he is much sorry

If any thing more than your sport and pleasure

Did move your greatness and this noble state

To call upon him; he hopes it is no other

But for your health and your digestion sake,

An after-dinner’s breath.

Agam. Hear you, Patroclus.

We are too well acquainted with these answers;

But his evasion, wing’d thus swift with scorn,

Cannot outfly our apprehensions.

Much attribute he hath, and much the reason

Why we ascribe it to him. Yet all his virtues,

Not virtuously on his own part beheld,

Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss;

Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish,

Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him

We come to speak with him; and you shall not sin

If you do say we think him over-proud

And under-honest, in self-assumption greater

Than in the note of judgement; and worthier than himself

Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on,

Disguise the holy strength of their command,

And underwrite in an observing kind

His humorous predominance; yea, watch

His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if

The passage and whole carriage of this action

Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and ad

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.

Patr. I shall, and bring his answer presently.

Exit

Agam. In second voice we’ll not be satisfied;

We come to speak with him. Vlyſſes, enter you.

Exit Vlyſſes

Aiax. What is he more than another?

Agam. No more than what he thinks he is.

Aiax. Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better man than I am?

Agam. No question.

Aiax. Will you subscribe his thought and say he is?

Agam. No, noble Aiax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable.

Aiax. Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not what pride is.

Agam. Your mind is the clearer, Aiax, 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.

Re-enter Vlyſſes

Aiax. I do hate a proud man as I do hate the engend’ring of toads.

Nestor. [Aside] And yet he loves himself: is’t not strange?

Vlyſ. Achilles will not to the field to-morrow.

Agam. What’s his excuse?

Vlyſ. 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.

Agam. Why will he not, upon our fair request,

Untent his person and share the air with us?

Vlyſ. Things small as nothing, for request’s sake only,

He makes important; possess’d he is with greatness,

And speaks not to himself but with a pride

That quarrels at self-breath. Imagin’d worth

Holds in his blood such swol’n and hot discourse

That ’twixt his mental and his active parts

Kingdom’d Achilles in commotion rages,

And batters down himself. What should I say?

He is so plaguy proud that the death tokens of it

Cry ‘No recovery.’

Agam. Let Aiax 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.

Vlyſ. O Agamemnon, let it not be so!

We’ll consecrate the steps that Aiax 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 worshipp’d

Of that we hold an idol more than he?

No, this thrice-worthy and right valiant lord

Shall not so stale his palm, nobly acquir’d,

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] O, this is well! He rubs the vein of him.

Diom. [Aside] And how his silence drinks up this applause!

Aiax. If I go to him, with my armed fist I’ll pash him o’er the face.

Agam. O, no, you shall not go.

Aiax. An ’a be proud with me I’ll pheeze his pride.

Let me go to him.

Vlyſ. Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.

Aiax. A paltry, insolent fellow!

Nestor. [Aside] How he describes himself!

Aiax. Can he not be sociable?

Vlyſ. [Aside] The raven chides blackness.

Aiax. I’ll let his humours blood.

Agam. [Aside] He will be the physician that should be the patient.

Aiax. An all men were a my mind-

Vlyſ. [Aside] Wit would be out of fashion.

Aiax. ’A should not bear it so, ’a should eat’s words first.

Shall pride carry it?

Nestor. [Aside] An ’twould, you’d carry half.

Vlyſ. [Aside] ’A would have ten shares.

Aiax. 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.

Vlyſ. [To Agamemnon] My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.

Nestor. Our noble general, do not do so.

Diom. You must prepare to fight without Achilles.

Vlyſ. 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.

Vlyſ. Know the whole world, he is as valiant.

Aiax. A whoreson dog, that shall palter with us thus!

Would he were a Troian!

Nestor. What a vice were it in Aiax now-

Vlyſ. If he were proud.

Diom. Or covetous of praise.

Vlyſ. Ay, or surly borne.

Diom. Or strange, or self-affected.

Vlyſ. Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure

Praise him that gat thee, she that gave thee suck;

Fam’d be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature

Thrice-fam’d beyond, beyond all erudition;

But he that disciplin’d thine arms to fight-

Let Mars divide eternity in twain

And give him half; and, for thy vigour,

Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield

To sinewy Aiax. 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 Aiax’ and your brain so temper’d,

You should not have the eminence of him,

But be as Aiax.

Aiax. Shall I call you father?

Nestor. Ay, my good son.

Diom. Be rul’d by him, Lord Aiax.

Vlyſ. There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles

Keeps thicket. Please it our great general

To call together all his state of war;

Fresh kings are come to Troy. To-morrow

We must with all our main of power stand fast;

And here’s a lord-come knights from east to west

And cull their flower, Aiax shall cope the best.

Agam. Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep.

Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.

Exeunt

Music sounds within. Enter Pandarus and a Servant

Pan. Friend, you-pray you, a word. Do you not follow the young Lord Paris?

Ser. Ay, sir, when he goes before me.

Pan. You depend upon him, I mean?

Ser. Sir, I do depend upon the lord.

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

Ser. The lord be praised!

Pan. You know me, do you not?

Ser. Faith, sir, superficially.

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

Ser. I hope I shall know your honour better.

Pan. I do desire it.

Ser. You are in the state of grace.

Pan. Grace! Not so, friend; honour and lordship are my titles. What music is this?

Ser. I do but partly know, sir; it is music in parts.

Pan. Know you the musicians?

Ser. Wholly, sir.

Pan. Who play they to?

Ser. To the hearers, sir.

Pan. At whose pleasure, friend?

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

Pan. Command, I mean, friend.

Ser. Who shall I command, sir?

Pan. Friend, we understand not one another: I am to courtly, and thou art too cunning. At whose request do these men play?

Ser. 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 invisible soul-

Pan. Who, my cousin, Creſſida?

Ser. No, sir, Helen. Could not you find out that by her attributes?

Pan. It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the Lady Creſſida. I come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troylus; I will make a complimental assault upon him, for my business seethes.

Ser. Sodden business! There’s a stew’d phrase indeed!

Enter Paris and Helena.

Pan. 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.

Hel. Dear lord, you are full of fair words.

Pan. You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen. Fair prince, here is good broken music.

Par. 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.

Hel. He is full of harmony.

Pan. Truly, lady, no.

Hel. O, sir-

Pan. Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude.

Par. Well said, my lord. Well, you say so in fits.

Pan. I have business to my lord, dear queen. My lord, will you vouchsafe me a word?

Hel. Nay, this shall not hedge us out. We’ll hear you sing, certainly-

Pan. Well sweet queen, you are pleasant with me. But, marry, thus, my lord: my dear lord and most esteemed friend, your brother Troylus-

Hel. My Lord Pandarus, honey-sweet lord-

Pan. Go to, sweet queen, go to-commends himself most affectionately to you-

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

Pan. Sweet queen, sweet queen; that’s a sweet queen, i’ faith.

Hel. And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.

Pan. 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.

Hel. My Lord Pandarus!

Pan. What says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen?

Par. What exploit’s in hand? Where sups he to-night?

Hel. Nay, but, my lord-

Pan. What says my sweet queen?-My cousin will fall out with you.

Hel. You must not know where he sups.

Par. I’ll lay my life, with my disposer Creſſida.

Pan. No, no, no such matter; you are wide. Come, your disposer is sick.

Par. Well, I’ll make’s excuse.

Pan. Ay, good my lord. Why should you say Creſſida? No, your poor disposer’s sick.

Par. I spy.

Pan. You spy! What do you spy?-Come, give me an instrument. Now, sweet queen.

Hel. Why, this is kindly done.

Pan. My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet queen.

Hel. She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my Lord Paris.

Pan. He! No, she’ll none of him; they two are twain.

Hel. Falling in, after falling out, may make them three.

Pan. Come, come. I’ll hear no more of this; I’ll sing you a song now.

Hel. Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead.

Pan. Ay, you may, you may.

Hel. Let thy song be love. This love will undo us all. O Cupid, Cupid, Cupid!

Pan. Love! Ay, that it shall, i’ faith.

Par. Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love.

Pan. In good troth, it begins so.

[Sings]

Love, love, nothing but love, still love, still more!

For, oh, 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! a while, but ha! ha! ha!

O ho! groans out for ha! ha! ha!-hey ho!

Hel. In love, i’ faith, to the very tip of the nose.

Par. 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.

Pan. Is this the generation of love: hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who’s a-field today?

Par. Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy. I would fain have arm’d to-day, but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my brother Troylus went not?

Hel. He hangs the lip at something. You know all, Lord Pandarus.

Pan. Not I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they spend to-day. You’ll remember your brother’s excuse?

Par. To a hair.

Pan. Farewell, sweet queen.

Hel. Commend me to your niece.

Pan. I will, sweet queen. Exit. Sound a retreat

Par. 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 touch’d,

Shall more obey than to the edge of steel

Or force of Greekish sinews; you shall do more

Than all the island kings-disarm great Hector.

Hel. ’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.

Par. Sweet, above thought I love thee.

Exeunt

Enter Pandarus and Boy, meeting

Pan. How now! Where’s thy master? At my cousin Creſſida’s?

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

Enter Troylus

Pan. O, here he comes. How now, how now!

Troy. Sirrah, walk off. Exit Boy

Pan. Have you seen my cousin?

Troy. 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 these fields

Where I may wallow in the lily beds

Propos’d for the deserver! O gentle Pandar,

From Cupid’s shoulder pluck his painted wings,

And fly with me to Creſſid!

Pan. Walk here i’ th’ orchard, I’ll bring her straight.

Exit

Troy. 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 tastes indeed

Love’s thrice-repured nectar? Death, I fear me;

Swooning destruction; or some joy too fine,

Too subtle-potent, tun’d too sharp in sweetness,

For the capacity of my ruder powers.

I fear it much; and I do fear besides

That I shall lose distinction in my joys;

As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps

The enemy flying.

Re-enter Pandarus

Pan. 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 fray’d with a sprite. I’ll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain; she fetches her breath as short as a new-ta’en sparrow.

Exit

Troy. 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.

Re-enter Pandarus With Creſſid

Pan. Come, come, what need you blush? Shame’s a baby.-Here she is now; swear the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me.- What, are you gone again? You must be watch’d ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward, we’ll put you i’ th’ fills.-Why do you not speak to her?-Come, draw this curtain and let’s see your picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! An ’twere dark, you’d close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress How now, a kiss in fee-farm! Build there, carpenter; the air is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i’ th’ river. Go to, go to.

Troy. You have bereft me of all words, lady.

Pan. Words pay no debts, give her deeds; but she’ll bereave you o’ th’ deeds too, if she call your activity in question. What, billing again? Here’s ‘In witness whereof the parties interchangeably.’ Come in, come in; I’ll go get a fire. Exit

Cre. Will you walk in, my lord?

Troy. O Creſſid, how often have I wish’d me thus!

Cre. Wish’d, my lord! The gods grant-O my lord!

Troy. What should they grant? What makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?

Cre. More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.

Troy. Fears make devils of cherubims; they never see truly.

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

Troy. O, let my lady apprehend no fear! In all Cupid’s pageant there is presented no monster.

Cre. Nor nothing monstrous neither?

Troy. Nothing, but our undertakings when we vow to weep seas, live in fire, cat 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 confin’d; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to limit.

Cre. 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?

Troy. 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: Troylus 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 Troylus.

Cre. Will you walk in, my lord?

Re-enter Pandarus

Pan. What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?

Cre. Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.

Pan. 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.

Troy. You know now your hostages: your uncle’s word and my firm faith.

Pan. Nay, I’ll give my word for her too: our kindred, though they be long ere they are wooed, they are constant being won; they are burs, I can tell you; they’ll stick where they are thrown.

Cre. Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart.

Prince Troylus, I have lov’d you night and day

For many weary months.

Troy. Why was my Creſſid then so hard to win?

Cre. 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 blabb’d? Who shall be true to us,

When we are so unsecret to ourselves?

But, though I lov’d you well, I woo’d you not;

And yet, good faith, I wish’d myself a man,

Or that we women had men’s privilege

Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,

For in this rapture I shall surely speak

The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,

Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws

My very soul of counsel. Stop my mouth.

Troy. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.

Pan. Pretty, i’ faith.

Cre. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me;

’Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss.

I am asham’d. O heavens! what have I done?

For this time will I take my leave, my lord.

Troy. Your leave, sweet Creſſid!

Pan. Leave! An you take leave till to-morrow morning-

Cre. Pray you, content you.

Troy. What offends you, lady?

Cre. Sir, mine own company.

Troy. You cannot shun yourself.

Cre. 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.

Troy. Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.

Cre. 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.

Troy. 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.

Cre. In that I’ll war with you.

Troy. 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 Troylus, when their rhymes,

Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,

Want similes, truth tir’d 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’ centre-

Yet, after all comparisons of truth,

As truth’s authentic author to be cited,

‘As true as Troylus’ shall crown up the verse

And sanctify the numbers.

Cre. Prophet may you be!

If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,

When time is old and hath forgot itself,

When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,

And blind oblivion swallow’d cities up,

And mighty states characterless are grated

To dusty nothing-yet let memory

From false to false, among false maids in love,

Upbraid my falsehood when th’ have 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.’

Pan. 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 call’d

to

the world’s end after my name-call them all Pandars; let all

constant men be Troyluses, all false women Creſſids, and all

brokers between Pandars. Say ‘Amen.’

Troy. Amen.

Cre. Amen.

Pan. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber

and a bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your

pretty encounters, press it to death. Away!

And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here,

Bed, chamber, pander, to provide this gear!

Exeunt

Flourish. Enter Agamemnon, Vlyſſes, Diomedes, Nestor, Aiax, Menelaus, and Chalcas

Cal. Now, Princes, for the service I have done,

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 abandon’d Troy, left my possession,

Incurr’d a traitor’s name, expos’d myself

From certain and possess’d 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.

Agam. What wouldst thou of us, Troian? Make demand.

Cal. You have a Troian prisoner call’d Antenor,

Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear.

Oft have you-often have you thanks therefore-

Desir’d 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.

Agam. Let Diomedes bear him,

And bring us Creſſid hither. Calchas shall have

What he requests of us. Good Diomed,

Furnish you fairly for this interchange;

Withal, bring word if Hector will to-morrow

Be answer’d in his challenge. Aiax is ready.

Diom. This shall I undertake; and ’tis a burden

Which I am proud to bear.

Exeunt Diomedes and Chalcas

Achilles and Patroclus stand in their tent

Vlyſ. 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 turn’d on him?

If so, I have derision med’cinable

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.

Agam. We’ll execute your purpose, and put on

A form of strangeness as we pass along.

So do each lord; and either greet him not,

Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more

Than if not look’d on. I will lead the way.

Achil. What comes the general to speak with me?

You know my mind. I’ll fight no more ’gainst Troy.

Agam. What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?

Nestor. Would you, my lord, aught with the general?

Achil. No.

Nestor. Nothing, my lord.

Agam. The better.

Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor

Achil. Good day, good day.

Men. How do you? How do you?

Exit

Achil. What, does the cuckold scorn me?

Aiax. How now, Patroclus?

Achil. Good morrow, Aiax.

Aiax. Ha?

Achil. Good morrow.

Aiax. Ay, and good next day too.

Exit

Achil. What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?

Patr. They pass by strangely. They were us’d to bend,

To send their smiles before them to Achilles,

To come as humbly as they us’d to creep

To holy altars.

Achil. What, am I poor of late?

’Tis certain, greatness, once fall’n out with fortune,

Must fall out with men too. What the declin’d is,

He shall as soon read in the eyes of others

As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,

Show not their mealy wings but to the summer;

And not a man for being simply man

Hath any honour, but honour for those honours

That are without him, as place, riches, and favour,

Prizes of accident, as oft as merit;

Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,

The love that lean’d on them as slippery too,

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 Vlyſſes.

I’ll interrupt his reading.

How now, Vlyſſes!

Vlyſ. Now, great Thetis’ son!

Achil. What are you reading?

Vlyſ. 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.

Achil. This is not strange, Vlyſſes.

The beauty that is borne here in the face

The bearer knows not, but commends itself

To others’ eyes; nor doth the eye itself-

That most pure spirit of sense-behold itself,

Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed

Salutes each other with each other’s form;

For speculation turns not to itself

Till it hath travell’d, and is mirror’d there

Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.

Vlyſ. 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 th’ applause

Where th’ are 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 Aiax. Heavens, what a man is there!

A very horse that has he knows not what!

Nature, what things there are

Most abject in regard and dear in use!

What things again most dear in the esteem

And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow-

An act that very chance doth throw upon him-

Aiax renown’d. O heavens, what some men do,

While some men leave to do!

How some men creep in skittish Fortune’s-hall,

Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!

How one man eats into another’s pride,

While pride is fasting in his wantonness!

To see these Grecian lords!-why, even already

They clap the lubber Aiax on the shoulder,

As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast,

And great Troy shrinking.

Achil. I do believe it; for they pass’d by me

As misers do by beggars-neither gave to me

Good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?

Vlyſ. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,

Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,

A great-siz’d monster of ingratitudes.

Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour’d

As fast as they are made, forgot as soon

As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,

Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hang

Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mock’ry. Take the instant way;

For honour travels in a strait so narrow -

Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path,

For emulation hath a thousand sons

That one by one pursue; if you give way,

Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,

Like to an ent’red tide they all rush by

And leave you hindmost;

Or, like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank,

Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,

O’er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present,

Though less than yours in past, must o’ertop yours;

For Time is like a fashionable host,

That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’ hand;

And with his arms out-stretch’d, as he would fly,

Grasps in the corner. The welcome ever smiles,

And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek

Remuneration for the thing it was;

For beauty, wit,

High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,

Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all

To envious and calumniating Time.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin-

That all with one consent praise new-born gawds,

Though they are made and moulded of things past,

And give to dust that is a little gilt

More laud than gilt o’er-dusted.

The present eye praises the present object.

Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,

That all the Greeks begin to worship Aiax,

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.

Achil. Of this my privacy

I have strong reasons.

Vlyſ. 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.

Achil. Ha! known!

Vlyſ. Is that a wonder?

The providence that’s in a watchful state

Knows almost every grain of Plutus’ gold;

Finds bottom in th’ uncomprehensive deeps;

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 island sound her trump,

And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing

‘Great Hector’s sister did Achilles win;

But our great Aiax bravely beat down him.’

Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak.

The fool slides o’er the ice that you should break.

Exit

Patr. To this effect, Achilles, have I mov’d you.

A woman impudent and mannish grown

Is not more loath’d than an effeminate man

In time of action. I stand condemn’d for this;

They think my little stomach to the war

And your great love to me restrains you thus.

Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid

Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,

And, like a dew-drop from the lion’s mane,

Be shook to airy air.

Achil. Shall Aiax fight with Hector?

Patr. Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.

Achil. I see my reputation is at stake;

My fame is shrewdly gor’d.

Patr. 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.

Achil. Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus.

I’ll send the fool to Aiax, and desire him

T’ invite the Troian lords, after the combat,

To see us here unarm’d. I have a woman’s longing,

An appetite that I am sick withal,

To see great Hector in his weeds of peace;

To talk with him, and to behold his visage,

Even to my full of view.

Enter Thersites

A labour sav’d!

Ther. A wonder!

Achil. What?

Ther. Aiax goes up and down the field asking for himself.

Achil. How so?

Ther. He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector, and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he raves in saying nothing.

Achil. How can that be?

Ther. Why, ’a stalks up and down like a peacock-a stride and a stand; ruminaies 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 for ever; 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, Aiax’; 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 leather jerkin.

Achil. Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

Ther. 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 Aiax.

Achil. To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire the valiant Aiax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarm’d to my tent; and to procure safe conduct for his person of the magnanimous and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honour’d Captain General of the Grecian army, et cetera, Agamemnon. Do this.

Patr. Jove bless great Aiax!

Ther. Hum!

Patr. I come from the worthy Achilles-

Ther. Ha!

Patr. Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent-

Ther. Hum!

Patr. And to procure safe conduct from Agamemnon.

Ther. Agamemnon!

Patr. Ay, my lord.

Ther. Ha!

Patr. What you say to’t?

Ther. God buy you, with all my heart.

Patr. Your answer, sir.

Ther. If to-morrow 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.

Patr. Your answer, sir.

Ther. Fare ye well, with all my heart.

Achil. Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?

Ther. No, but he’s out a tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has knock’d out his brains I know not; but, I am sure, none; unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.

Achil. Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.

Ther. Let me carry another to his horse; for that’s the more capable creature.

Achil. My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr’d;

And I myself see not the bottom of it.

Exeunt Achilles and Patroclus

Ther. Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it. I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance. Exit

Enter, at one side, Æneas, and servant with a torch; at another, Paris, Diephœbus, Antenor, Diomedes the Grecian, and others, with torches

Par. See, ho! Who is that there?

Dieph. It is the Lord Æneas.

Æne. Is the Prince there in person?

Had I so good occasion to lie long

As you, Prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business

Should rob my bed-mate of my company.

Diom. That’s my mind too. Good morrow, Lord Æneas.

Par. A valiant Greek, Æneas -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.

Æne. Health to you, valiant sir,

During all question of the gentle truce;

But when I meet you arm’d, as black defiance

As heart can think or courage execute.

Diom. 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.

Æne. And thou shalt hunt a lion, that will fly

With his face backward. In humane gentleness,

Welcome to Troy! now, by Anchises’ life,

Welcome indeed! By Venus’ hand I swear

No man alive can love in such a sort

The thing he means to kill, more excellently.

Diom. We sympathise. Jove let Æneas live,

If to my sword his fate be not the glory,

A thousand complete courses of the sun!

But in mine emulous honour let him die

With every joint a wound, and that to-morrow!

Æne. We know each other well.

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

Par. This is the most despiteful’st gentle greeting

The noblest hateful love, that e’er I heard of.

What business, lord, so early?

Æne. I was sent for to the King; but why, I know not.

Par. His purpose meets you: ’twas to bring this Greek

To Calchas’ house, and there to render him,

For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Creſſid.

Let’s have your company; or, if you please,

Haste there before us. I constantly believe-

Or rather call my thought a certain knowledge-

My brother Troylus lodges there to-night.

Rouse him and give him note of our approach,

With the whole quality wherefore; I fear

We shall be much unwelcome.

Æne. That I assure you:

Troylus had rather Troy were borne to Greece

Than Creſſid borne from Troy.

Par. There is no help;

The bitter disposition of the time

Will have it so. On, lord; we’ll follow you.

Æne. Good morrow, all. Exit with servant

Par. 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?

Diom. Both alike:

He merits well to have her that doth seek her,

Not making any scruple of her soilure,

With such a hell of pain and world of charge;

And you as well to keep her that defend her,

Not palating the taste of her dishonour,

With such a costly loss of wealth and friends.

He like a puling cuckold would drink up

The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece;

You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins

Are pleas’d to breed out your inheritors.

Both merits pois’d, each weighs nor less nor more;

But he as he, the heavier for a whore.

Par. You are too bitter to your country-woman.

Diom. 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 Troian hath been slain; since she could speak,

She hath not given so many good words breath

As for her Greeks and Troians suff’red death.

Par. Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do,

Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy;

But we in silence hold this virtue well:

We’ll not commend what we intend to sell.

Here lies our way.

Exeunt

Enter Troylus and Creſſid

Troy. Dear, trouble not yourself; the morn is cold.

Cre. Then, sweet my lord, I’ll call mine uncle down;

He shall unbolt the gates.

Troy. 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!

Cre. Good morrow, then.

Troy. I prithee now, to bed.

Cre. Are you aweary of me?

Troy. O Creſſida! but that the busy day,

Wak’d by the lark, hath rous’d the ribald crows,

And dreaming night will hide our joys no longer,

I would not from thee.

Cre. Night hath been too brief.

Troy. 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.

Cre. 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.

Pan. [Within] What’s all the doors open here?

Troy. It is your uncle.

Enter Pandarus

Cre. A pestilence on him! Now will he be mocking.

I shall have such a life!

Pan. How now, how now! How go maidenheads?

Here, you maid! Where’s my cousin Creſſid?

Cre. Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle.

You bring me to do, and then you flout me too.

Pan. To do what? to do what? Let her say what.

What have I brought you to do?

Cre. Come, come, beshrew your heart! You’ll ne’er be good,

Nor suffer others.

Pan. Ha, ha! Alas, poor wretch! a poor capocchia! hast not slept to-night? Would he not, a naughty man, let it sleep? A bugbear take him!

Cre. Did not I tell you? Would he were knock’d 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.

Troy. Ha! ha!

Cre. Come, you are deceiv’d, 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.

Exeunt Troylus and Creſſid

Pan. Who’s there? What’s the matter? Will you beat down the door? How now? What’s the matter?

Enter Æneas

Æne. Good morrow, lord, good morrow.

Pan. Who’s there? My lord Æneas? By my troth, I knew you not. What news with you so early?

Æne. Is not Prince Troylus here?

Pan. Here! What should he do here?

Æne. Come, he is here, my lord; do not deny him.

It doth import him much to speak with me.

Pan. 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?

Æne. Who!-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.

Re-enter Troylus

Troy. How now! What’s the matter?

Æne. My lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you,

My matter is so rash. There is at hand

Paris your brother, and Deiphobus,

The Grecian Diomed, and our Antenor

Deliver’d to us; and for him forthwith,

Ere the first sacrifice, within this hour,

We must give up to Diomedes’ hand

The Lady Creſſida.

Troy. Is it so concluded?

Æne. By Priam, and the general state of Troy.

They are at hand and ready to effect it.

Troy. How my achievements mock me!

I will go meet them; and, my lord Æneas,

We met by chance; you did not find me here.

Æne. Good, good, my lord, the secrets of neighbour Pandar

Have not more gift in taciturnity.

Exeunt Troylus and Æneas

Pan. Is’t possible? No sooner got but lost? The devil take Antenor! The young prince will go mad. A plague upon Antenor! I would they had broke’s neck.

Re-enter Creſſid

Cre. How now! What’s the matter? Who was here?

Pan. Ah, ah!

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

Pan. Would I were as deep under the earth as I am above!

Cre. O the gods! What’s the matter?

Pan. 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!

Cre. Good uncle, I beseech you, on my knees I beseech you, what’s the matter?

Pan. Thou must be gone, wench, thou must be gone; thou art chang’d for Antenor; thou must to thy father, and be gone from Troylus. ’Twill be his death; ’twill be his bane; he cannot bear it.

Cre. O you immortal gods! I will not go.

Pan. Thou must.

Cre. 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 Troylus. O you gods divine,

Make Creſſid’s name the very crown of falsehood,

If ever she leave Troylus! Time, force, and death,

Do to this body what extremes you can,

But the strong base and building of my love

Is as the very centre of the earth,

Drawing all things to it. I’ll go in and weep-

Pan. Do, do.

Cre. Tear my bright hair, and scratch my praised cheeks,

Crack my clear voice with sobs and break my heart,

With sounding ‘Troylus.’ I will not go from Troy.

Exeunt

Enter Paris, Troylus, Æneas, Diephœbus, Antenor, and Diomedes

Par. It is great morning; and the hour prefix’d

For her delivery to this valiant Greek

Comes fast upon. Good my brother Troylus,

Tell you the lady what she is to do

And haste her to the purpose.

Troy. 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 Troylus

A priest, there off’ring to it his own heart.

Exit

Par. I know what ’tis to love,

And would, as I shall pity, I could help!

Please you walk in, my lords.

Exeunt

Enter Pandarus and Creſſid

Pan. Be moderate, be moderate.

Cre. 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 affections

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 Troylus

Pan. Here, here, here he comes. Ah, sweet ducks!

Cre. O Troylus! Troylus! [Embracing him]

Pan. 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!

Troy. Creſſid, I love thee in so strain’d a purity

That the bless’d gods, as angry with my fancy,

More bright in zeal than the devotion which

Cold lips blow to their deities, take thee from me.

Cre. Have the gods envy?

Pan. Ay, ay, ay; ’tis too plain a case.

Cre. And is it true that I must go from Troy?

Troy. A hateful truth.

Cre. What, and from Troylus too?

Troy. From Troy and Troylus.

Cre. Is’t possible?

Troy. And suddenly; where injury of chance

Puts back leave-taking, justles roughly by

All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips

Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents

Our lock’d embrasures, strangles our dear vows

Even in the birth of our own labouring breath.

We two, that with so many thousand sighs

Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves

With the rude brevity and discharge of one.

Injurious time now with a robber’s haste

Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how.

As many farewells as be stars in heaven,

With distinct breath and consign’d kisses to them,

He fumbles up into a loose adieu,

And scants us with a single famish’d kiss,

Distasted with the salt of broken tears.

Æne. [Within] My lord, is the lady ready?

Troy. Hark! you are call’d. Some say the Genius so

Cries ‘Come’ to him that instantly must die.

Bid them have patience; she shall come anon.

Pan. Where are my tears? Rain, to lay this wind, or my heart will be blown up by th’ root?

Exit

Cre. I must then to the Grecians?

Troy. No remedy.

Cre. A woeful Creſſid ’mongst the merry Greeks!

When shall we see again?

Troy. Hear me, my love. Be thou but true of heart-

Cre. I true! how now! What wicked deem is this?

Troy. Nay, we must use expostulation kindly,

For it is parting from us.

I speak not ‘Be thou true’ as fearing thee,

For I will throw my glove to Death himself

That there’s no maculation in thy heart;

But ‘Be thou true’ say I to fashion in

My sequent protestation: be thou true,

And I will see thee.

Cre. O, you shall be expos’d, my lord, to dangers

As infinite as imminent! But I’ll be true.

Troy. And I’ll grow friend with danger. Wear this sleeve.

Cre. And you this glove. When shall I see you?

Troy. I will corrupt the Grecian sentinels

To give thee nightly visitation.

But yet be true.

Cre. O heavens! ‘Be true’ again!

Troy. Hear why I speak it, love.

The Grecian youths are full of quality;

They’re loving, well compos’d with gifts of nature,

And flowing o’er with arts and exercise.

How novelties may move, and parts with person,

Alas, a kind of godly jealousy,

Which I beseech you call a virtuous sin,

Makes me afeard.

Cre. O heavens! you love me not.

Troy. Die I a villain, then!

In this I do not call your faith in question

So mainly as my merit. I cannot sing,

Nor heel the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk,

Nor play at subtle games-fair virtues all,

To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant;

But I can tell that in each grace of these

There lurks a still and dumb-discoursive devil

That tempts most cunningly. But be not tempted.

Cre. Do you think I will?

Troy. 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.

Æne. [Within] Nay, good my lord!

Troy. Come, kiss; and let us part.

Par. [Within] Brother Troylus!

Troy. Good brother, come you hither;

And bring Æneas and the Grecian with you.

Cre. My lord, will you be true?

Troy. 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.

Enter Æneas, Paris, Antenor, Diephœbus, and Diomedes

Fear not my truth: the moral of my wit

Is ‘plain and true’; there’s all the reach of it.

Welcome, Sir Diomed! Here is the lady

Which for Antenor we deliver you;

At the port, lord, I’ll give her to thy hand,

And by the way possess thee what she is.

Entreat her fair; and, by my soul, fair Greek,

If e’er thou stand at mercy of my sword,

Name Creſſid, and thy life shall be as safe

As Priam is in Ilion.

Diom. Fair Lady Creſſid,

So please you, save the thanks this prince expects.

The lustre in your eye, heaven in your cheek,

Pleads your fair usage; and to Diomed

You shall be mistress, and command him wholly.

Troy. Grecian, thou dost not use me courteously

To shame the zeal of my petition to the

In praising her. I tell thee, lord of Greece,

She is as far high-soaring o’er thy praises

As thou unworthy to be call’d her servant.

I charge thee use her well, even for my charge;

For, by the dreadful Pluto, if thou dost not,

Though the great bulk Achilles be thy guard,

I’ll cut thy throat.

Diom. O, be not mov’d, Prince Troylus.

Let me be privileg’d 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 priz’d. But that you say ‘Be’t so,’

I speak it in my spirit and honour, ‘No.’

Troy. Come, to the port. I’ll tell thee, Diomed,

This brave shall oft make thee to hide thy head.

Lady, give me your hand; and, as we walk,

To our own selves bend we our needful talk.

Exeunt Troylus, Creſſid, and Diomedes

[Sound

trumpet]

Par. Hark! Hector’s trumpet.

Æne. How have we spent this morning!

The Prince must think me tardy and remiss,

That swore to ride before him to the field.

Par. ’Tis Troylus’ fault. Come, come to field with him.

Dieph. Let us make ready straight.

Æne. Yea, with a bridegroom’s fresh alacrity

Let us address to tend on Hector’s heels.

The glory of our Troy doth this day lie

On his fair worth and single chivalry.

Exeunt

Enter Aiax, armed; Agamemnon, Achilles, Patroclus, Menelaus, Vlyſſes, Nestor, and others

Agam. Here art thou in appointment fresh and fair,

Anticipating time with starting courage.

Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy,

Thou dreadful Aiax, that the appalled air

May pierce the head of the great combatant,

And hale him hither.

Aiax. Thou, trumpet, there’s my purse.

Now crack thy lungs and split thy brazen pipe;

Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek

Out-swell the colic of puff Aquilon’d.

Come, stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout blood:

Thou blowest for Hector. [Trumpet sounds]

Vlyſ. No trumpet answers.

Achil. ’Tis but early days.

Enter Diomedes, with Creſſid

Agam. Is not yond Diomed, with Calchas’ daughter?

Vlyſ. ’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.

Agam. Is this the lady Creſſid?

Diom. Even she.

Agam. Most dearly welcome to the Greeks, sweet lady.

Nestor. Our general doth salute you with a kiss.

Vlyſ. Yet is the kindness but particular;

’Twere better she were kiss’d in general.

Nestor. And very courtly counsel: I’ll begin.

So much for Nestor.

Achil. I’ll take that winter from your lips, fair lady.

Achilles bids you welcome.

Men. I had good argument for kissing once.

Patr. But that’s no argument for kissing now;

For thus popp’d Paris in his hardiment,

And parted thus you and your argument.

Vlyſ. O deadly gall, and theme of all our scorns!

For which we lose our heads to gild his horns.

Patr. The first was Menelaus’ kiss; this, mine-

[Kisses her again]

Patroclus kisses you.

Men. O, this is trim!

Patr. Paris and I kiss evermore for him.

Men. I’ll have my kiss, sir. Lady, by your leave.

Cre. In kissing, do you render or receive?

Patr. Both take and give.

Cre. I’ll make my match to live,

The kiss you take is better than you give;

Therefore no kiss.

Men. I’ll give you boot; I’ll give you three for one.

Cre. You are an odd man; give even or give none.

Men. An odd man, lady? Every man is odd.

Cre. No, Paris is not; for you know ’tis true

That you are odd, and he is even with you.

Men. You fillip me o’ th’ head.

Cre. No, I’ll be sworn.

Vlyſ. It were no match, your nail against his horn.

May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?

Cre. You may.

Vlyſ. I do desire it.

Cre. Why, beg then.

Vlyſ. Why then, for Venus’ sake give me a kiss

When Helen is a maid again, and his.

Cre. I am your debtor; claim it when ’tis due.

Vlyſ. Never’s my day, and then a kiss of you.

Diom. Lady, a word. I’ll bring you to your father.

Exit with Creſſid

Nestor. A woman of quick sense.

Vlyſ. 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 encounters so glib of tongue

That give a coasting welcome ere it comes,

And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts

To every ticklish reader! Set them down

For sluttish spoils of opportunity,

And daughters of the game. [Trumpet within]

All. The Troians trumpet.

Enter Hector, armed; Æneas, Troylus, Paris, Hellenus,

and other Trojans, with attendants

Agam. Yonder comes the troop.

Æne. 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.

Agam. Which way would Hector have it?

Æne. He cares not; he’ll obey conditions.

Achil. ’Tis done like Hector; but securely done,

A little proudly, and great deal misprizing

The knight oppos’d.

Æne. If not Achilles, sir,

What is your name?

Achil. If not Achilles, nothing.

Æne. Therefore Achilles. But whate’er, know this:

In the extremity of great and little

Valour and pride excel themselves in Hector;

The one almost as infinite as all,

The other blank as nothing. Weigh him well,

And that which looks like pride is courtesy.

This Aiax 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 Troian and half Greek.

Achil. A maiden battle then? O, I perceive you!

Re-enter Diomedes

Agam. Here is Sir Diomed. Go, gentle knight,

Stand by our Aiax. As you and Lord ]Eneas

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.

[Aiax and Hector enter the lists]

Vlyſ. They are oppos’d already.

Agam. What Troian is that same that looks so heavy?

Vlyſ. 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 provok’d, nor being provok’d soon calm’d;

His heart and hand both open and both free;

For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows,

Yet gives he not till judgement 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 Troylus, and on him erect

A second hope as fairly built as Hector.

Thus says Æneas, one that knows the youth

Even to his inches, and, with private soul,

Did in great Ilion thus translate him to me.

[Alarum. Hector and Aiax fight]

Agam. They are in action.

Nestor. Now, Aiax, hold thine own!

Troy. Hector, thou sleep’st;

Awake thee.

Agam. His blows are well dispos’d. There, Aiax!

[Trumpets cease]

Diom. You must no more.

Æne. Princes, enough, so please you.

Aiax. I am not warm yet; let us fight again.

Diom. As Hector pleases.

Hect. 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 Troian so

That thou could’st say ‘This hand is Grecian all,

And this is Troian; the sinews of this leg

All Greek, and this all Troy; my mother’s blood

Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister

Bounds in my father’s’; by Jove multipotent,

Thou shouldst not bear from me a Greekish member

Wherein my sword had not impressure made

Of our rank feud; but the just gods gainsay

That any drop thou borrow’dst from thy mother,

My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword

Be drained! Let me embrace thee, Aiax.

By him that thunders, thou hast lusty arms;

Hector would have them fall upon him thus.

Cousin, all honour to thee!

Aiax. 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.

Hect. Not Neoptolemus so mirable,

On whose bright crest Fame with her loud’st Oyes

Cries ‘This is he’ could promise to himself

A thought of added honour torn from Hector.

Æne. There is expectance here from both the sides

What further you will do.

Hect. We’ll answer it:

The issue is embracement. Aiax, farewell.

Aiax. If I might in entreaties find success,

As seld I have the chance, I would desire

My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.

Diom. ’Tis Agamemnon’s wish; and great Achilles

Doth long to see unarm’d the valiant Hector.

Hect. Æneas, call my brother Troylus to me,

And signify this loving interview

To the expecters of our Troian part;

Desire them home. Give me thy hand, my cousin;

I will go eat with thee, and see your knights.

Agamemnon and the rest of the Greeks come forward

Aiax. Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.

Hect. 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.

Agam. 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 strew’d with husks

And formless ruin of oblivion;

But in this extant moment, faith and troth,

Strain’d purely from all hollow bias-drawing,

Bids thee with most divine integrity,

From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.

Hect. I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon.

Agam. [To Troylus] My well-fam’d lord of Troy, no less to you.

Men. Let me confirm my princely brother’s greeting.

You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.

Hect. Who must we answer?

Æne. The noble Menelaus.

Hect. O you, my lord? By Mars his gauntlet, thanks!

Mock not that I affect the untraded oath;

Your quondam wife swears still by Venus’ glove.

She’s well, but bade me not commend her to you.

Men. Name her not now, sir; she’s a deadly theme.

Hect. O, pardon; I offend.

Nestor. I have, thou gallant Troian, seen thee oft,

Labouring for destiny, make cruel way

Through ranks of Greekish youth; and I have seen thee,

As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed,

Despising many forfeits and subduements,

When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i’ 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 hemm’d thee in,

Like an Olympian wrestling. This have I seen;

But this thy countenance, still lock’d in steel,

I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire,

And once fought with him. He was a soldier good,

But, by great Mars, the captain of us all,

Never like thee. O, let an old man embrace thee;

And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.

Æne. ’Tis the old Nestor.

Hect. Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle,

That hast so long walk’d hand in hand with time.

Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee.

Nestor. I would my arms could match thee in contention

As they contend with thee in courtesy.

Hect. I would they could.

Nestor. Ha!

By this white beard, I’d fight with thee to-morrow.

Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time.

Vlyſ. I wonder now how yonder city stands,

When we have here her base and pillar by us.

Hect. I know your favour, Lord Vlyſſes, well.

Ah, sir, there’s many a Greek and Troian dead,

Since first I saw yourself and Diomed

In Ilion on your Greekish embassy.

Vlyſ. Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue.

My prophecy is but half his journey yet;

For yonder walls, that pertly front your town,

Yond towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,

Must kiss their own feet.

Hect. 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.

Vlyſ. 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.

Achil. I shall forestall thee, Lord Vlyſſes, thou!

Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee;

I have with exact view perus’d thee, Hector,

And quoted joint by joint.

Hect. Is this Achilles?

Achil. I am Achilles.

Hect. Stand fair, I pray thee; let me look on thee.

Achil. Behold thy fill.

Hect. Nay, I have done already.

Achil. Thou art too brief. I will the second time,

As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.

Hect. 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?

Achil. 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.

Hect. 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?

Achil. I tell thee yea.

Hect. 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 endeavour deeds to match these words,

Or may I never-

Aiax. 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.

Hect. I pray you let us see you in the field;

We have had pelting wars since you refus’d

The Grecians’ cause.

Achil. Dost thou entreat me, Hector?

To-morrow do I meet thee, fell as death;

To-night all friends.

Hect. Thy hand upon that match.

Agam. 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 tambourines, let the trumpets blow,

That this great soldier may his welcome know.

Exeunt all but Troylus and Vlyſſes

Troy. My Lord Vlyſſes, tell me, I beseech you,

In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?

Vlyſ. At Menelaus’ tent, most princely Troylus.

There Diomed doth feast with him to-night,

Who neither looks upon the heaven nor earth,

But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view

On the fair Creſſid.

Troy. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much,

After we part from Agamemnon’s tent,

To bring me thither?

Vlyſ. You shall command me, sir.

As gentle tell me of what honour was

This Creſſida in Troy? Had she no lover there

That wails her absence?

Troy. O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars

A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord?

She was belov’d, she lov’d; she is, and doth;

But still sweet love is food for fortune’s tooth.

Exeunt

Enter Achilles and Patroclus

Achil. I’ll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night,

Which with my scimitar I’ll cool to-morrow.

Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.

Patr. Here comes Thersites.

Enter Thersites

Achil. How now, thou core of envy!

Thou crusty batch of nature, what’s the news?

Ther. Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of idiot worshippers, here’s a letter for thee.

Achil. From whence, fragment?

Ther. Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.

Patr. Who keeps the tent now?

Ther. The surgeon’s box or the patient’s wound.

Patr. Well said, Adversity! and what needs these tricks?

Ther. Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk; thou art said to be Achilles’ male varlet.

Patr. Male varlet, you rogue! What’s that?

Ther. 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, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, limekilns i’ th’ palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee- simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries!

Patr. Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus?

Ther. Do I curse thee?

Patr. Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.

Ther. No! Why art thou, then, exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sleid silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal’s purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pest’red with such water-flies-diminutives of nature!

Patr. Out, gall!

Ther. Finch egg!

Achil. My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite

From my great purpose in to-morrow’s battle.

Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,

A token from her daughter, my fair love,

Both taxing me and gaging me to keep

An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it.

Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay;

My major vow lies here, this I’ll obey.

Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent;

This night in banqueting must all be spent.

Away, Patroclus! Exit with Patroclus

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

Enter Hector, Troylus, Aiax, Agamemnon, Vlyſſes, Nestor, Menelaus, and Diomedes, with lights

Agam. We go wrong, we go wrong.

Aiax. No, yonder ’tis;

There, where we see the lights.

Hect. I trouble you.

Aiax. No, not a whit.

Re-enter Achilles

Vlyſ. Here comes himself to guide you.

Achil. Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, Princes all.

Agam. So now, fair Prince of Troy, I bid good night;

Aiax commands the guard to tend on you.

Hect. Thanks, and good night to the Greeks’ general.

Men. Good night, my lord.

Hect. Good night, sweet Lord Menelaus.

Ther. Sweet draught! ‘Sweet’ quoth ’a?

Sweet sink, sweet sewer!

Achil. Good night and welcome, both at once, to those

That go or tarry.

Agam. Good night.

Exeunt Agamemnon and Menelaus

Achil. Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed,

Keep Hector company an hour or two.

Diom. I cannot, lord; I have important business,

The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector.

Hect. Give me your hand.

Vlyſ. [Aside to Troylus] Follow his torch; he goes to

Calchas’ tent; I’ll keep you company.

Troy. Sweet sir, you honour me.

Hect. And so, good night.

Exit Diomedes; Vlyſſes and Troylus following

Achil. Come, come, enter my tent.

Exeunt all but Thersites

Ther. 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 Troian drab, and uses the traitor Calchas’ tent. I’ll after. Nothing but lechery! All incontinent varlets! Exit

Enter Diomedes

Diom. What, are you up here, ho? Speak.

Cal. [Within] Who calls?

Diom. Diomed. Calchas, I think. Where’s your daughter?

Cal. [Within] She comes to you.

Enter Troylus and Vlyſſes, at a distance; after them Thersites

Vlyſ. Stand where the torch may not discover us.

Enter Creſſid

Troy. Creſſid comes forth to him.

Diom. How now, my charge!

Cre. Now, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you.

[Whispers]

Troy. Yea, so familiar!

Vlyſ. She will sing any man at first sight.

Ther. And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she’s noted.

Diom. Will you remember?

Cre. Remember? Yes.

Diom. Nay, but do, then;

And let your mind be coupled with your words.

Troy. What shall she remember?

Vlyſ. List!

Cre. Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.

Ther. Roguery!

Diom. Nay, then-

Cre. I’ll tell you what-

Diom. Fo, fo! come, tell a pin; you are a forsworn-

Cre. In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?

Ther. A juggling trick, to be secretly open.

Diom. What did you swear you would bestow on me?

Cre. I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath;

Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.

Diom. Good night.

Troy. Hold, patience!

Vlyſ. How now, Troian!

Cre. Diomed!

Diom. No, no, good night; I’ll be your fool no more.

Troy. Thy better must.

Cre. Hark! a word in your ear.

Troy. O plague and madness!

Vlyſ. You are moved, Prince; let us depart, I pray,

Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself

To wrathful terms. This place is dangerous;

The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.

Troy. Behold, I pray you.

Vlyſ. Nay, good my lord, go off;

You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.

Troy. I prithee stay.

Vlyſ. You have not patience; come.

Troy. I pray you, stay; by hell and all hell’s torments,

I will not speak a word.

Diom. And so, good night.

Cre. Nay, but you part in anger.

Troy. Doth that grieve thee? O withered truth!

Vlyſ. How now, my lord?

Troy. By Jove, I will be patient.

Cre. Guardian! Why, Greek!

Diom. Fo, fo! adieu! you palter.

Cre. In faith, I do not. Come hither once again.

Vlyſ. You shake, my lord, at something; will you go?

You will break out.

Troy. She strokes his cheek.

Vlyſ. Come, come.

Troy. Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word:

There is between my will and all offences

A guard of patience. Stay a little while.

Ther. How the devil luxury, with his fat rump and potato finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry!

Diom. But will you, then?

Cre. In faith, I will, lo; never trust me else.

Diom. Give me some token for the surety of it.

Cre. I’ll fetch you one.

Exit

Vlyſ. You have sworn patience.

Troy. Fear me not, my lord;

I will not be myself, nor have cognition

Of what I feel. I am all patience.

Re-enter Creſſid

Ther. Now the pledge; now, now, now!

Cre. Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.

Troy. O beauty! where is thy faith?

Vlyſ. My lord!

Troy. I will be patient; outwardly I will.

Cre. You look upon that sleeve; behold it well.

He lov’d me-O false wench!-Give’t me again.

Diom. Whose was’t?

Cre. It is no matter, now I ha’t again.

I will not meet with you to-morrow night.

I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.

Ther. Now she sharpens. Well said, whetstone.

Diom. I shall have it.

Cre. What, this?

Diom. Ay, that.

Cre. 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. Nay, do not snatch it from me;

He that takes that doth take my heart withal.

Diom. I had your heart before; this follows it.

Troy. I did swear patience.

Cre. You shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not;

I’ll give you something else.

Diom. I will have this. Whose was it?

Cre. It is no matter.

Diom. Come, tell me whose it was.

Cre. ’Twas one’s that lov’d me better than you will.

But, now you have it, take it.

Diom. Whose was it?

Cre. By all Diana’s waiting women yond,

And by herself, I will not tell you whose.

Diom. To-morrow will I wear it on my helm,

And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.

Troy. Wert thou the devil and wor’st it on thy horn,

It should be challeng’d.

Cre. Well, well, ’tis done, ’tis past; and yet it is not;

I will not keep my word.

Diom. Why, then farewell;

Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.

Cre. You shall not go. One cannot speak a word

But it straight starts you.

Diom. I do not like this fooling.

Ther. Nor I, by Pluto; but that that likes not you

Pleases me best.

Diom. What, shall I come? The hour-

Cre. Ay, come-O Jove! Do come. I shall be plagu’d.

Diom. Farewell till then.

Cre. Good night. I prithee come. Exit Diomedes

Troylus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee;

But with my heart the other eye doth see.

Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find,

The error of our eye directs our mind.

What error leads must err; O, then conclude,

Minds sway’d by eyes are full of turpitude.

Exit

Ther. A proof of strength she could not publish more,

Unless she said ‘My mind is now turn’d whore.’

Vlyſ. All’s done, my lord.

Troy. It is.

Vlyſ. Why stay we, then?

Troy. To make a recordation to my soul

Of every syllable that here was spoke.

But if I tell how these two did coact,

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?

Vlyſ. I cannot conjure, Troian.

Troy. She was not, sure.

Vlyſ. Most sure she was.

Troy. Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.

Vlyſ. Nor mine, my lord. Creſſid was here but now.

Troy. Let it not be believ’d 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.

Vlyſ. What hath she done, Prince, that can soil our mothers?

Troy. Nothing at all, unless that this were she.

Ther. Will ’a swagger himself out on’s own eyes?

Troy. 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 god’s delight,

If there be rule in unity itself,

This was 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 slipp’d, dissolv’d, and loos’d;

And with another knot, five-finger-tied,

The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,

The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy relics

Of her o’er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.

Vlyſ. May worthy Troylus be half-attach’d

With that which here his passion doth express?

Troy. Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well

In characters as red as Mars his heart

Inflam’d with Venus. Never did young man fancy

With so eternal and so fix’d a soul.

Hark, Greek: as much as I do Creſſid love,

So much by weight hate I her Diomed.

That sleeve is mine that he’ll bear on his helm;

Were it a casque compos’d by Vulcan’s skill

My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout

Which shipmen do the hurricano call,

Constring’d in mass by the almighty sun,

Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune’s ear

In his descent than shall my prompted sword

Falling on Diomed.

Ther. He’ll tickle it for his concupy.

Troy. O Creſſid! O false Creſſid! false, false, false!

Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,

And they’ll seem glorious.

Vlyſ. O, contain yourself;

Your passion draws ears hither.

Enter Æneas

Æne. I have been seeking you this hour, my lord.

Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy;

Aiax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.

Troy. Have with you, Prince. My courteous lord, adieu.

Fairwell, revolted fair!-and, Diomed,

Stand fast and wear a castle on thy head.

Vlyſ. I’ll bring you to the gates.

Troy. Accept distracted thanks.

Exeunt Troylus, Æneas. and Vlyſſes

Ther. 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!

Exit

Enter Hector and Andromache

And. When was my lord so much ungently temper’d

To stop his ears against admonishment?

Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day.

Hect. You train me to offend you; get you in.

By all the everlasting gods, I’ll go.

And. My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day.

Hect. No more, I say.

Enter Caſſandra

Caſ. Where is my brother Hector?

And. Here, sister, arm’d, 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.

Caſ. O, ’tis true!

Hect. Ho! bid my trumpet sound.

Caſ. No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother!

Hect. Be gone, I say. The gods have heard me swear.

Caſ. The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows;

They are polluted off’rings, more abhorr’d

Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.

And. 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.

Caſ. It is the purpose that makes strong the vow;

But vows to every purpose must not hold.

Unarm, sweet Hector.

Hect. Hold you still, I say.

Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man

Holds honour far more precious dear than life.

Enter Troylus

How now, young man! Mean’st thou to fight to-day?

And. Caſſandra, call my father to persuade.

Exit Caſſandra

Hect. No, faith, young Troylus; doff thy harness, youth;

I am to-day 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 to-day for thee and me and Troy.

Troy. Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you

Which better fits a lion than a man.

Hect. What vice is that, good Troylus?

Chide me for it.

Troy. When many times the captive Grecian falls,

Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,

You bid them rise and live.

Hect. O, ’tis fair play!

Troy. Fool’s play, by heaven, Hector.

Hect. How now! how now!

Troy. For th’ love of all the gods,

Let’s leave the hermit Pity with our mother;

And when we have our armours buckled on,

The venom’d vengeance ride upon our swords,

Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth!

Hect. Fie, savage, fie!

Troy. Hector, then ’tis wars.

Hect. Troylus, I would not have you fight to-day.

Troy. 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’ergalled with recourse of tears;

Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,

Oppos’d to hinder me, should stop my way,

But by my ruin.

Re-enter Caſſandra, with Priam

Caſ. Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast;

He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay,

Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,

Fall all together.

Pri. 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.

Hect. Æneas is a-field;

And I do stand engag’d to many Greeks,

Even in the faith of valour, to appear

This morning to them.

Pri. Ay, but thou shalt not go.

Hect. 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.

Caſ. O Priam, yield not to him!

And. Do not, dear father.

Hect. Andromache, I am offended with you.

Upon the love you bear me, get you in.

Exit Andromache

Troy. This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl

Makes all these bodements.

Caſ. O, farewell, dear Hector!

Look how thou diest. Look how thy eye turns pale.

Look how thy wounds do bleed at many vents.

Hark how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out;

How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth;

Behold distraction, frenzy, and amazement,

Like witless antics, one another meet,

And all cry, Hector! Hector’s dead! O Hector!

Troy. Away, away!

Caſ. Farewell!-yet, soft! Hector, I take my leave.

Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.

Exit

Hect. You are amaz’d, 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.

Pri. Farewell. The gods with safety stand about thee!

Exeunt severally Priam and Hector.

Alarums

Troy. They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe,

I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.

Enter Pandarus

Pan. Do you hear, my lord? Do you hear?

Troy. What now?

Pan. Here’s a letter come from yond poor girl.

Troy. Let me read.

Pan. A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick so troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl, and what one thing, what another, that I shall leave you one o’ th’s days; and I have a rheum in mine eyes too, and such an ache in my bones that unless a man were curs’d I cannot tell what to think on’t. What says she there?

Troy. Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart;

Th’ effect doth operate another way.

[Tearing the letter]

Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together.

My love with words and errors still she feeds,

But edifies another with her deeds. Exeunt

severally

Enter Thersites. Excursions

Ther. 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 Troian ass that loves the whore there might send that Greekish whoremasterly villain with the sleeve back to the dissembling luxurious drab of a sleeve-less errand. A th’ t’other side, the policy of those crafty swearing rascals-that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Vlyſſes -is not prov’d worth a blackberry. They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Aiax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles; and now is the cur, Aiax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to-day; whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion.

Enter Diomedes, Troylus following

Soft! here comes sleeve, and t’other.

Troy. Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river Styx

I would swim after.

Diom. Thou dost miscall retire.

I do not fly; but advantageous care

Withdrew me from the odds of multitude.

Have at thee.

Ther. Hold thy whore, Grecian; now for thy whore,

Troian-now the sleeve, now the sleeve!

Exeunt Troylus and Diomedes fighting

Enter Hector

Hect. What art thou, Greek? Art thou for Hector’s match?

Art thou of blood and honour?

Ther. No, no-I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave; a very filthy rogue.

Hect. I do believe thee. Live.

Exit

Ther. 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.

Exit

Enter Diomedes and a Servant

Diom. Go, go, my servant, take thou Troylus’ horse;

Present the fair steed to my lady Creſſid.

Fellow, commend my service to her beauty;

Tell her I have chastis’d the amorous Troian,

And am her knight by proof.

Ser. I go, my lord.

Exit

Enter Agamemnon

Agam. Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamus

Hath beat down enon; bastard Margarelon

Hath Doreus prisoner,

And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam,

Upon the pashed corses of the kings

Epistrophus and Cedius. Polixenes is slain;

Amphimacus and Thoas deadly hurt;

Patroclus ta’en, or slain; and Palamedes

Sore hurt and bruis’d. The dreadful Sagittary

Appals our numbers. Haste we, Diomed,

To reinforcement, or we perish all.

Enter Nestor

Nestor. Go, bear Patroclus’ body to Achilles,

And bid the snail-pac’d Aiax arm for shame.

There is a thousand Hectors in the field;

Now here he fights on Galathe his horse,

And there lacks work; anon he’s there afoot,

And there they fly or die, like scaled sculls

Before the belching whale; then is he yonder,

And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge,

Fall down before him like the mower’s swath.

Here, there, and everywhere, he leaves and takes;

Dexterity so obeying appetite

That what he will he does, and does so much

That proof is call’d impossibility.

Enter Vlyſſes

Vlyſ. O, courage, courage, courage, Princes! Great

Achilles Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance.

Patroclus’ wounds have rous’d his drowsy blood,

Together with his mangled Myrmidons,

That noseless, handless, hack’d and chipp’d, come to

him, Crying on Hector. Aiax hath lost a friend

And foams at mouth, and he is arm’d and at it,

Roaring for Troylus; who hath done to-day

Mad and fantastic execution,

Engaging and redeeming of himself

With such a careless force and forceless care

As if that luck, in very spite of cunning,

Bade him win all.

Enter Aiax

Aiax. Troylus! thou coward Troylus!

Exit

Diom. Ay, there, there.

Nestor. So, so, we draw together.

Exit

Enter Achilles

Achil. Where is this Hector?

Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face;

Know what it is to meet Achilles angry.

Hector! where’s Hector? I will none but Hector.

Exeunt

Enter Aiax

Aiax. Troylus, thou coward Troylus, show thy head.

Enter Diomedes

Diom. Troylus, I say! Where’s Troylus?

Aiax. What wouldst thou?

Diom. I would correct him.

Aiax. Were I the general, thou shouldst have my office

Ere that correction. Troylus, I say! What, Troylus!

Enter Troylus

Troy. O traitor Diomed! Turn thy false face, thou traitor,

And pay thy life thou owest me for my horse.

Diom. Ha! art thou there?

Aiax. I’ll fight with him alone. Stand, Diomed.

Diom. He is my prize. I will not look upon.

Troy. Come, both, you cogging Greeks; have at you

Exeunt fighting

Enter Hector

Hect. Yea, Troylus? O, well fought, my youngest brother!

Enter Achilles

Achil. Now do I see thee, ha! Have at thee, Hector!

Hect. Pause, if thou wilt.

Achil. I do disdain thy courtesy, proud Troian.

Be happy that my arms are out of use;

My rest and negligence befriends thee now,

But thou anon shalt hear of me again;

Till when, go seek thy fortune.

Exit

Hect. Fare thee well.

I would have been much more a fresher man,

Had I expected thee.

Re-enter Troylus

How now, my brother!

Troy. Aiax hath ta’en Æneas. 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 thou end my life to-day.

Exit

Enter one in armour

Hect. Stand, stand, thou Greek; thou art a goodly mark.

No? wilt thou not? I like thy armour well;

I’ll frush it and unlock the rivets all

But I’ll be master of it. Wilt thou not, beast, abide?

Why then, fly on; I’ll hunt thee for thy hide.

Exeunt

Enter Achilles, with Myrmidons

Achil. 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.

Exeunt

Enter Menelaus and Paris, fighting; then Thersites

Ther. The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull! now, dog! ’Loo, Paris, ’loo! now my double-horn’d Spartan! ’loo, Paris, ’loo! The bull has the game. Ware horns, ho!

Exeunt Paris and Menelaus

Enter Bastard

Baſt. Turn, slave, and fight.

Ther. What art thou?

Baſt. A bastard son of Priam’s.

Ther. I am a bastard too; I love bastards. I am a bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, 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 judgement. Farewell, bastard.

Exit

Baſt. The devil take thee, coward!

Exit

Enter Hector

Hect. Most putrified core so fair without,

Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life.

Now is my day’s work done; I’ll take good breath:

Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death!

[Disarms]

Enter Achilles and his Myrmidons

Achil. 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.

Hect. I am unarm’d; forego this vantage, Greek.

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

[Hector falls]

So, Ilion, fall thou next! Come, Troy, sink down;

Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone.

On, Myrmidons, and cry you an amain

‘Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.’

[A retreat sounded]

Hark! a retire upon our Grecian part.

Gree. The Troian trumpets sound the like, my lord.

Achil. The dragon wing of night o’erspreads the earth

And, stickler-like, the armies separates.

My half-supp’d sword, that frankly would have fed,

Pleas’d with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed.

[Sheathes his sword]

Come, tie his body to my horse’s tail;

Along the field I will the Troian trail.

Exeunt

Sound retreat. Shout. Enter Agamemnon, Aiax, Menelaus, Nestor, Diomedes, and the rest, marching

Agam. Hark! hark! what shout is this?

Nestor. Peace, drums!

Sold. [Within] Achilles! Achilles! Hector’s slain.

Achilles!

Diom. The bruit is Hector’s slain, and by Achilles.

Aiax. If it be so, yet bragless let it be;

Great Hector was as good a man as he.

Agam. March patiently along. Let one be sent

To pray Achilles see us at our tent.

If in his death the gods have us befriended;

Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended.

Exeunt

Enter Æneas, Paris, Antenor, and Diephœbus

Æne. Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field.

Never go home; here starve we out the night.

Enter Troylus

Troy. Hector is slain.

ALL. Hector! The gods forbid!

Troy. He’s dead, and at the murderer’s horse’s tail,

In beastly sort, dragg’d through the shameful field.

Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed.

Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy.

I say at once let your brief plagues be mercy,

And linger not our sure destructions on.

Æne. My lord, you do discomfort all the host.

Troy. You understand me not that tell me so.

I do not speak of flight, of fear of death,

But dare all imminence that gods and men

Address their dangers in. Hector is gone.

Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba?

Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call’d

Go in to Troy, and say there ‘Hector’s dead.’

There is a word will Priam turn to stone;

Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,

Cold statues of the youth; and, in a word,

Scare Troy out of itself. But, march away;

Hector is dead; there is no more to say.

Stay yet. You vile abominable tents,

Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains,

Let Titan rise as early as he dare,

I’ll through and through you. And, thou great-siz’d coward,

No space of earth shall sunder our two hates;

I’ll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still,

That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy’s thoughts.

Strike a free march to Troy. With comfort go;

Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.

Enter Pandarus

Pan. But hear you, hear you!

Troy. Hence, broker-lackey. Ignominy and shame

Pursue thy life and live aye with thy name!

Exeunt all but Pandarus

Pan. A goodly medicine for my aching bones! world! world! thus is the poor agent despis’d! traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be so lov’d, 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 subdu’d in armed trail,

Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.

Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted

cloths. As many as be here of pander’s hall,

Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar’s fall;

Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,

Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.

Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade,

Some two months hence my will shall here be made.

It should be now, but that my fear is this,

Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss.

Till then I’ll sweat and seek about for eases,

And at that time bequeath you my diseases.

Exeunt

FINIS.

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Table of Contents

THE TRAGEDIE OF TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

The Prologue

Actus Primus. Scœna Prima.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE