ACT III
SCENE I. Troy. Priam's palace.
Enter a Servant and PANDARUS
- PANDARUS
- Friend, you! pray you, a word: do not you follow
- the young Lord Paris?
- Servant
- Ay, sir, when he goes before me.
- PANDARUS
- You depend upon him, I mean?
- Servant
- Sir, I do depend upon the lord.
- PANDARUS
- You depend upon a noble gentleman; I must needs
- praise him.
- Servant
- The lord be praised!
- PANDARUS
- You know me, do you not?
- Servant
- Faith, sir, superficially.
- PANDARUS
- Friend, know me better; I am the Lord Pandarus.
- Servant
- I hope I shall know your honour better.
- PANDARUS
- I do desire it.
- Servant
- You are in the state of grace.
- PANDARUS
- Grace! not so, friend: honour and lordship are my titles.
- Music within
- What music is this?
- Servant
- I do but partly know, sir: it is music in parts.
- PANDARUS
- Know you the musicians?
- Servant
- Wholly, sir.
- PANDARUS
- Who play they to?
- Servant
- To the hearers, sir.
- PANDARUS
- At whose pleasure, friend
- Servant
- At mine, sir, and theirs that love music.
- PANDARUS
- Command, I mean, friend.
- Servant
- Who shall I command, sir?
- PANDARUS
- Friend, we understand not one another: I am too
- courtly and thou art too cunning. At whose request
- do these men play?
- Servant
- That's to 't indeed, sir: marry, sir, at the request
- of Paris my lord, who's there in person; with him,
- the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of beauty, love's
- invisible soul —
- PANDARUS
- Who, my cousin Cressida?
- Servant
- No, sir, Helen: could you not find out that by her
- attributes?
- PANDARUS
- It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the
- Lady Cressida. I come to speak with Paris from the
- Prince Troilus: I will make a complimental assault
- upon him, for my business seethes.
- Servant
- Sodden business! there's a stewed phrase indeed!
Enter PARIS and HELEN, attended
- PANDARUS
- Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair
- company! fair desires, in all fair measure,
- fairly guide them! especially to you, fair queen!
- fair thoughts be your fair pillow!
- HELEN
- Dear lord, you are full of fair words.
- PANDARUS
- You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen. Fair
- prince, here is good broken music.
- PARIS
- You have broke it, cousin: and, by my life, you
- shall make it whole again; you shall piece it out
- with a piece of your performance. Nell, he is full
- of harmony.
- PANDARUS
- Truly, lady, no.
- HELEN
- O, sir —
- PANDARUS
- Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude.
- PARIS
- Well said, my lord! well, you say so in fits.
- PANDARUS
- I have business to my lord, dear queen. My lord,
- will you vouchsafe me a word?
- HELEN
- Nay, this shall not hedge us out: we'll hear you
- sing, certainly.
- PANDARUS
- Well, sweet queen. you are pleasant with me. But,
- marry, thus, my lord: my dear lord and most esteemed
- friend, your brother Troilus —
- HELEN
- My Lord Pandarus; honey-sweet lord —
- PANDARUS
- Go to, sweet queen, to go: — commends himself most
- affectionately to you —
- HELEN
- You shall not bob us out of our melody: if you do,
- our melancholy upon your head!
- PANDARUS
- Sweet queen, sweet queen! that's a sweet queen, i' faith.
- HELEN
- And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.
- PANDARUS
- Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall not,
- in truth, la. Nay, I care not for such words; no,
- no.
- HELEN
- My Lord Pandarus —
- PANDARUS
- What says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen?
- PARIS
- What exploit's in hand? where sups he to-night?
- HELEN
- Nay, but, my lord —
- PANDARUS
- What says my sweet queen? My cousin will fall out
- with you. You must not know where he sups.
- PARIS
- I'll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida.
- PANDARUS
- No, no, no such matter; you are wide: come, your
- disposer is sick.
- PARIS
- Well, I'll make excuse.
- PANDARUS
- Ay, good my lord. Why should you say Cressida? no,
- your poor disposer's sick.
- PARIS
- I spy.
- PANDARUS
- You spy! what do you spy? Come, give me an
- instrument. Now, sweet queen.
- HELEN
- Why, this is kindly done.
- PANDARUS
- My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have,
- sweet queen.
- HELEN
- She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my lord Paris.
- PANDARUS
- He! no, she'll none of him; they two are twain.
- HELEN
- Falling in, after falling out, may make them three.
- PANDARUS
- Come, come, I'll hear no more of this; I'll sing
- you a song now.
- HELEN
- Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou
- hast a fine forehead.
- PANDARUS
- Ay, you may, you may.
- HELEN
- Let thy song be love: this love will undo us all.
- O Cupid, Cupid, Cupid!
- PANDARUS
- Love! ay, that it shall, i' faith.
- PARIS
- Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love.
- PANDARUS
- In good troth, it begins so.
- Sings
- Love, love, nothing but love, still more!
- For, O, love's bow
- Shoots buck and doe:
- The shaft confounds,
- Not that it wounds,
- But tickles still the sore.

- Yet that which seems the wound to kill,
- Doth turn oh! oh! to ha! ha! he!
- So dying love lives still:
- Oh! oh! a while, but ha! ha! ha!
- Oh! oh! groans out for ha! ha! ha!
- Heigh-ho!
- HELEN
- In love, i' faith, to the very tip of the nose.
- PARIS
- He eats nothing but doves, love, and that breeds hot
- blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot
- thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love.
- PANDARUS
- Is this the generation of love? hot blood, hot
- thoughts, and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers:
- is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who's
- a-field to-day?
- PARIS
- Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the
- gallantry of Troy: I would fain have armed to-day,
- but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my
- brother Troilus went not?
- HELEN
- He hangs the lip at something: you know all, Lord Pandarus.
- PANDARUS
- Not I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they
- sped to-day. You'll remember your brother's excuse?
- PARIS
- To a hair.
- PANDARUS
- Farewell, sweet queen.
- HELEN
- Commend me to your niece.
- PANDARUS
- I will, sweet queen.
Exit
A retreat sounded
- PARIS
- They're come from field: let us to Priam's hall,
- To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you
- To help unarm our Hector: his stubborn buckles,
- With these your white enchanting fingers touch'd,
- Shall more obey than to the edge of steel
- Or force of Greekish sinews; you shall do more
- Than all the island kings — disarm great Hector.
- HELEN
- 'Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris;
- Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty
- Gives us more palm in beauty than we have,
- Yea, overshines ourself.
- PARIS
- Sweet, above thought I love thee.
Exeunt
SCENE II. The same. Pandarus' orchard.
Enter PANDARUS and Troilus's Boy, meeting
- PANDARUS
- How now! where's thy master? at my cousin
- Cressida's?
- Boy
- No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.
- PANDARUS
- O, here he comes.
- Enter TROILUS
- How now, how now!

Exit Boy
- PANDARUS
- Have you seen my cousin?
- TROILUS
- No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door,
- Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks
- Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
- And give me swift transportance to those fields
- Where I may wallow in the lily-beds
- Proposed for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus,
- From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings
- And fly with me to Cressid!
- PANDARUS
- Walk here i' the orchard, I'll bring her straight.
Exit
- TROILUS
- I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
- The imaginary relish is so sweet
- That it enchants my sense: what will it be,
- When that the watery palate tastes indeed
- Love's thrice repured nectar? death, I fear me,
- Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine,
- Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness,
- For the capacity of my ruder powers:
- I fear it much; and I do fear besides,
- That I shall lose distinction in my joys;
- As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
- The enemy flying.
Re-enter PANDARUS
- PANDARUS
- She's making her ready, she'll come straight: you
- must be witty now. She does so blush, and fetches
- her wind so short, as if she were frayed with a
- sprite: I'll fetch her. It is the prettiest
- villain: she fetches her breath as short as a
- new-ta'en sparrow.
Exit
- TROILUS
- Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom:
- My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse;
- And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
- Like vassalage at unawares encountering
- The eye of majesty.
Re-enter PANDARUS with CRESSIDA
- PANDARUS
- Come, come, what need you blush? shame's a baby.
- Here she is now: swear the oaths now to her that
- you have sworn to me. What, are you gone again?
- you must be watched ere you be made tame, must you?
 Why do you not speak to
- her? Come, draw this curtain, and let's see your
- picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend
- daylight! an 'twere dark, you'ld close sooner.
- So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. How now!
- a kiss in fee-farm! build there, carpenter; the air
- is sweet.  The falcon as the tercel, for all the
- ducks i' the river: go to, go to.
- TROILUS
- You have bereft me of all words, lady.
- PANDARUS
- Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll
- bereave you o' the deeds too, if she call your
- activity in question. What, billing again? Here's
- 'In witness whereof the parties interchangeably' —
- Come in, come in: I'll go get a fire.
Exit
- CRESSIDA
- Will you walk in, my lord?
- TROILUS
- O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus!
- CRESSIDA
- Wished, my lord! The gods grant — O my lord!
- TROILUS
- What should they grant? what makes this pretty
- abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet
- lady in the fountain of our love?
- CRESSIDA
- More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.
- TROILUS
- Fears make devils of cherubims; they never see truly.
- CRESSIDA
- Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer
- footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: to
- fear the worst oft cures the worse.
- TROILUS
- O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's
- pageant there is presented no monster.
- CRESSIDA
- Nor nothing monstrous neither?
- TROILUS
- Nothing, but our undertakings; when we vow to weep
- seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking
- it harder for our mistress to devise imposition
- enough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed.
- This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the will
- is infinite and the execution confined, that the
- desire is boundless and the act a slave to limit.
- CRESSIDA
- They say all lovers swear more performance than they
- are able and yet reserve an ability that they never
- perform, vowing more than the perfection of ten and
- discharging less than the tenth part of one. They
- that have the voice of lions and the act of hares,
- are they not monsters?
- TROILUS
- Are there such? such are not we: praise us as we
- are tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go
- bare till merit crown it: no perfection in reversion
- shall have a praise in present: we will not name
- desert before his birth, and, being born, his addition
- shall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus
- shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst
- shall be a mock for his truth, and what truth can
- speak truest not truer than Troilus.
- CRESSIDA
- Will you walk in, my lord?
Re-enter PANDARUS
- PANDARUS
- What, blushing still? have you not done talking yet?
- CRESSIDA
- Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.
- PANDARUS
- I thank you for that: if my lord get a boy of you,
- you'll give him me. Be true to my lord: if he
- flinch, chide me for it.
- TROILUS
- You know now your hostages; your uncle's word and my
- firm faith.
- PANDARUS
- Nay, I'll give my word for her too: our kindred,
- though they be long ere they are wooed, they are
- constant being won: they are burs, I can tell you;
- they'll stick where they are thrown.
- CRESSIDA
- Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart.
- Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day
- For many weary months.
- TROILUS
- Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
- CRESSIDA
- Hard to seem won: but I was won, my lord,
- With the first glance that ever — pardon me —
- If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.
- I love you now; but not, till now, so much
- But I might master it: in faith, I lie;
- My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown
- Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!
- Why have I blabb'd? who shall be true to us,
- When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
- But, though I loved you well, I woo'd you not;
- And yet, good faith, I wish'd myself a man,
- Or that we women had men's privilege
- Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,
- For in this rapture I shall surely speak
- The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,
- Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws
- My very soul of counsel! stop my mouth.
- TROILUS
- And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.
- PANDARUS
- Pretty, i' faith.
- CRESSIDA
- My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me;
- 'Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kiss:
- I am ashamed. O heavens! what have I done?
- For this time will I take my leave, my lord.
- TROILUS
- Your leave, sweet Cressid!
- PANDARUS
- Leave! an you take leave till to-morrow morning —
- CRESSIDA
- Pray you, content you.
- TROILUS
- What offends you, lady?
- CRESSIDA
- Sir, mine own company.
- TROILUS
- You cannot shun Yourself.
- CRESSIDA
- Let me go and try:
- I have a kind of self resides with you;
- But an unkind self, that itself will leave,
- To be another's fool. I would be gone:
- Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.
- TROILUS
- Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.
- CRESSIDA
- Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love;
- And fell so roundly to a large confession,
- To angle for your thoughts: but you are wise,
- Or else you love not, for to be wise and love
- Exceeds man's might; that dwells with gods above.
- TROILUS
- O that I thought it could be in a woman —
- As, if it can, I will presume in you —
- To feed for aye her ramp and flames of love;
- To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
- Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind
- That doth renew swifter than blood decays!
- Or that persuasion could but thus convince me,
- That my integrity and truth to you
- Might be affronted with the match and weight
- Of such a winnow'd purity in love;
- How were I then uplifted! but, alas!
- I am as true as truth's simplicity
- And simpler than the infancy of truth.
- CRESSIDA
- In that I'll war with you.
- TROILUS
- O virtuous fight,
- When right with right wars who shall be most right!
- True swains in love shall in the world to come
- Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes,
- Full of protest, of oath and big compare,
- Want similes, truth tired with iteration,
- As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
- As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
- As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre,
- Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
- As truth's authentic author to be cited,
- 'As true as Troilus' shall crown up the verse,
- And sanctify the numbers.
- CRESSIDA
- Prophet may you be!
- If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
- When time is old and hath forgot itself,
- When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,
- And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up,
- And mighty states characterless are grated
- To dusty nothing, yet let memory,
- From false to false, among false maids in love,
- Upbraid my falsehood! when they've said 'as false
- As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,
- As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer's calf,
- Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son,'
- 'Yea,' let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,
- 'As false as Cressid.'
- PANDARUS
- Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it; I'll be the
- witness. Here I hold your hand, here my cousin's.
- If ever you prove false one to another, since I have
- taken such pains to bring you together, let all
- pitiful goers-between be called to the world's end
- after my name; call them all Pandars; let all
- constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids,
- and all brokers-between Pandars! say, amen.
- TROILUS
- Amen.
- CRESSIDA
- Amen.
- PANDARUS
- Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber with a
- bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your
- pretty encounters, press it to death: away!
- And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here
- Bed, chamber, Pandar to provide this gear!
Exeunt
SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent.
Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX,
MENELAUS, and CALCHAS
- CALCHAS
- Now, princes, for the service I have done you,
- The advantage of the time prompts me aloud
- To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind
- That, through the sight I bear in things to love,
- I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,
- Incurr'd a traitor's name; exposed myself,
- From certain and possess'd conveniences,
- To doubtful fortunes; sequestering from me all
- That time, acquaintance, custom and condition
- Made tame and most familiar to my nature,
- And here, to do you service, am become
- As new into the world, strange, unacquainted:
- I do beseech you, as in way of taste,
- To give me now a little benefit,
- Out of those many register'd in promise,
- Which, you say, live to come in my behalf.
- AGAMEMNON
- What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? make demand.
- CALCHAS
- You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor,
- Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear.
- Oft have you — often have you thanks therefore —
- Desired my Cressid in right great exchange,
- Whom Troy hath still denied: but this Antenor,
- I know, is such a wrest in their affairs
- That their negotiations all must slack,
- Wanting his manage; and they will almost
- Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,
- In change of him: let him be sent, great princes,
- And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
- Shall quite strike off all service I have done,
- In most accepted pain.
- AGAMEMNON
- Let Diomedes bear him,
- And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have
- What he requests of us. Good Diomed,
- Furnish you fairly for this interchange:
- Withal bring word if Hector will to-morrow
- Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready.
- DIOMEDES
- This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden
- Which I am proud to bear.
Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS
Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their tent
- ULYSSES
- Achilles stands i' the entrance of his tent:
- Please it our general to pass strangely by him,
- As if he were forgot; and, princes all,
- Lay negligent and loose regard upon him:
- I will come last. 'Tis like he'll question me
- Why such unplausive eyes are bent on him:
- If so, I have derision medicinable,
- To use between your strangeness and his pride,
- Which his own will shall have desire to drink:
- It may be good: pride hath no other glass
- To show itself but pride, for supple knees
- Feed arrogance and are the proud man's fees.
- AGAMEMNON
- We'll execute your purpose, and put on
- A form of strangeness as we pass along:
- So do each lord, and either greet him not,
- Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
- Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.
- ACHILLES
- What, comes the general to speak with me?
- You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy.
- AGAMEMNON
- What says Achilles? would he aught with us?
- NESTOR
- Would you, my lord, aught with the general?
- ACHILLES
- No.
- NESTOR
- Nothing, my lord.
- AGAMEMNON
- The better.
Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR
- ACHILLES
- Good day, good day.
- MENELAUS
- How do you? how do you?
Exit
- ACHILLES
- What, does the cuckold scorn me?
- AJAX
- How now, Patroclus!
- ACHILLES
- Good morrow, Ajax.
- AJAX
- Ha?
- ACHILLES
- Good morrow.
- AJAX
- Ay, and good next day too.
Exit
- ACHILLES
- What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?
- PATROCLUS
- They pass by strangely: they were used to bend
- To send their smiles before them to Achilles;
- To come as humbly as they used to creep
- To holy altars.
- ACHILLES
- What, am I poor of late?
- 'Tis certain, greatness, once fall'n out with fortune,
- Must fall out with men too: what the declined is
- He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
- As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,
- Show not their mealy wings but to the summer,
- And not a man, for being simply man,
- Hath any honour, but honour for those honours
- That are without him, as place, riches, favour,
- Prizes of accident as oft as merit:
- Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
- The love that lean'd on them as slippery too,
- Do one pluck down another and together
- Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:
- Fortune and I are friends: I do enjoy
- At ample point all that I did possess,
- Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out
- Something not worth in me such rich beholding
- As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;
- I'll interrupt his reading.
- How now Ulysses!
- ULYSSES
- Now, great Thetis' son!
- ACHILLES
- What are you reading?
- ULYSSES
- A strange fellow here
- Writes me: 'That man, how dearly ever parted,
- How much in having, or without or in,
- Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
- Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
- As when his virtues shining upon others
- Heat them and they retort that heat again
- To the first giver.'
- ACHILLES
- This is not strange, Ulysses.
- The beauty that is borne here in the face
- The bearer knows not, but commends itself
- To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself,
- That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself,
- Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed
- Salutes each other with each other's form;
- For speculation turns not to itself,
- Till it hath travell'd and is mirror'd there
- Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.
- ULYSSES
- I do not strain at the position —
- It is familiar — but at the author's drift;
- Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves
- That no man is the lord of any thing,
- Though in and of him there be much consisting,
- Till he communicate his parts to others:
- Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
- Till he behold them form'd in the applause
- Where they're extended; who, like an arch,
- reverberates
- The voice again, or, like a gate of steel
- Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
- His figure and his heat. I was much wrapt in this;
- And apprehended here immediately
- The unknown Ajax.
- Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse,
- That has he knows not what. Nature, what things there are
- Most abject in regard and dear in use!
- What things again most dear in the esteem
- And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow —
- An act that very chance doth throw upon him —
- Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do,
- While some men leave to do!

- How one man eats into another's pride,
- While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
- To see these Grecian lords! — why, even already
- They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,
- As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast
- And great Troy shrieking.
- ACHILLES
- I do believe it; for they pass'd by me
- As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me
- Good word nor look: what, are my deeds forgot?
- ULYSSES
- Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
- Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
- A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
- Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd
- As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
- As done: perseverance, dear my lord,
- Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang
- Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
- In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
- For honour travels in a strait so narrow,
- Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
- For emulation hath a thousand sons
- That one by one pursue: if you give way,
- Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
- Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by
- And leave you hindmost;
- Or like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,
- Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
- O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present,
- Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours;
- For time is like a fashionable host
- That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
- And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly,
- Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles,
- And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not
- virtue seek
- Remuneration for the thing it was;
- For beauty, wit,
- High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
- Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
- To envious and calumniating time.
- One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
- That all with one consent praise new-born gawds,
- Though they are made and moulded of things past,
- And give to dust that is a little gilt
- More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.
- The present eye praises the present object.
- Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
- That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
- Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
- Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
- And still it might, and yet it may again,
- If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive
- And case thy reputation in thy tent;
- Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
- Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves
- And drave great Mars to faction.
- ACHILLES
- Of this my privacy
- I have strong reasons.
- ULYSSES
- But 'gainst your privacy
- The reasons are more potent and heroical:
- 'Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love
- With one of Priam's daughters.
- ACHILLES
- Ha! known!
- ULYSSES
- Is that a wonder?
- The providence that's in a watchful state
- Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold,
- Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps,
- Keeps place with thought and almost, like the gods,
- Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
- There is a mystery — with whom relation
- Durst never meddle — in the soul of state;
- Which hath an operation more divine
- Than breath or pen can give expressure to:
- All the commerce that you have had with Troy
- As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;
- And better would it fit Achilles much
- To throw down Hector than Polyxena:
- But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,
- When fame shall in our islands sound her trump,
- And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing,
- 'Great Hector's sister did Achilles win,
- But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.'
- Farewell, my lord: I as your lover speak;
- The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break.
Exit
- PATROCLUS
- To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you:
- A woman impudent and mannish grown
- Is not more loathed than an effeminate man
- In time of action. I stand condemn'd for this;
- They think my little stomach to the war
- And your great love to me restrains you thus:
- Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid
- Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
- And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
- Be shook to air.
- ACHILLES
- Shall Ajax fight with Hector?
- PATROCLUS
- Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.
- ACHILLES
- I see my reputation is at stake
- My fame is shrewdly gored.
- PATROCLUS
- O, then, beware;
- Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves:
- Omission to do what is necessary
- Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
- And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
- Even then when we sit idly in the sun.
- ACHILLES
- Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus:
- I'll send the fool to Ajax and desire him
- To invite the Trojan lords after the combat
- To see us here unarm'd: I have a woman's longing,
- An appetite that I am sick withal,
- To see great Hector in his weeds of peace,
- To talk with him and to behold his visage,
- Even to my full of view.
- Enter THERSITES
- A labour saved!
- THERSITES
- A wonder!
- ACHILLES
- What?
- THERSITES
- Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself.
- ACHILLES
- How so?
- THERSITES
- He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector, and is so
- prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he
- raves in saying nothing.
- ACHILLES
- How can that be?
- THERSITES
- Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock — a stride
- and a stand: ruminates like an hostess that hath no
- arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning:
- bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should
- say 'There were wit in this head, an 'twould out;'
- and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire
- in a flint, which will not show without knocking.
- The man's undone forever; for if Hector break not his
- neck i' the combat, he'll break 't himself in
- vain-glory. He knows not me: I said 'Good morrow,
- Ajax;' and he replies 'Thanks, Agamemnon.' What think
- you of this man that takes me for the general? He's
- grown a very land-fish, language-less, a monster.
- A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both
- sides, like a leather jerkin.
- ACHILLES
- Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.
- THERSITES
- Who, I? why, he'll answer nobody; he professes not
- answering: speaking is for beggars; he wears his
- tongue in's arms. I will put on his presence: let
- Patroclus make demands to me, you shall see the
- pageant of Ajax.
- ACHILLES
- To him, Patroclus; tell him I humbly desire the
- valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector
- to come unarmed to my tent, and to procure
- safe-conduct for his person of the magnanimous
- and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honoured
- captain-general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon,
- et cetera. Do this.
- PATROCLUS
- Jove bless great Ajax!
- THERSITES
- Hum!
- PATROCLUS
- I come from the worthy Achilles —
- THERSITES
- Ha!
- PATROCLUS
- Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent —
- THERSITES
- Hum!
- PATROCLUS
- And to procure safe-conduct from Agamemnon.
- THERSITES
- Agamemnon!
- PATROCLUS
- Ay, my lord.
- THERSITES
- Ha!
- PATROCLUS
- What say you to't?
- THERSITES
- God b' wi' you, with all my heart.
- PATROCLUS
- Your answer, sir.
- THERSITES
- If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven o'clock it will
- go one way or other: howsoever, he shall pay for me
- ere he has me.
- PATROCLUS
- Your answer, sir.
- THERSITES
- Fare you well, with all my heart.
- ACHILLES
- Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?
- THERSITES
- No, but he's out o' tune thus. What music will be in
- him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know
- not; but, I am sure, none, unless the fiddler Apollo
- get his sinews to make catlings on.
- ACHILLES
- Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.
- THERSITES
- Let me bear another to his horse; for that's the more
- capable creature.
- ACHILLES
- My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd;
- And I myself see not the bottom of it.

Exit
ACT IV
SCENE I. Troy. A street.
Enter, from one side, AENEAS, and Servant with a
torch; from the other, PARIS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR,
DIOMEDES, and others, with torches
- PARIS
- See, ho! who is that there?
- DEIPHOBUS
- It is the Lord AEneas.
- AENEAS
- Is the prince there in person?
- Had I so good occasion to lie long
- As you, prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business
- Should rob my bed-mate of my company.
- DIOMEDES
- That's my mind too. Good morrow, Lord AEneas.
- PARIS
- A valiant Greek, AEneas — take his hand —
- Witness the process of your speech, wherein
- You told how Diomed, a whole week by days,
- Did haunt you in the field.
- AENEAS
- Health to you, valiant sir,
- During all question of the gentle truce;
- But when I meet you arm'd, as black defiance
- As heart can think or courage execute.
- DIOMEDES
- The one and other Diomed embraces.
- Our bloods are now in calm; and, so long, health!
- But when contention and occasion meet,
- By Jove, I'll play the hunter for thy life
- With all my force, pursuit and policy.
 In humane gentleness,
- Welcome to Troy! now, by Anchises' life,
- Welcome, indeed! By Venus' hand I swear,
- No man alive can love in such a sort
- The thing he means to kill more excellently.
- DIOMEDES
- We sympathize: Jove, let AEneas live,
- If to my sword his fate be not the glory,
- A thousand complete courses of the sun!
- But, in mine emulous honour, let him die,
- With every joint a wound, and that to-morrow!
- AENEAS
- We know each other well.
- DIOMEDES
- We do; and long to know each other worse.
- PARIS
- This is the most despiteful gentle greeting,
- The noblest hateful love, that e'er I heard of.
- What business, lord, so early?
- AENEAS
- I was sent for to the king; but why, I know not.
- PARIS
- His purpose meets you: 'twas to bring this Greek
- To Calchas' house, and there to render him,
- For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid:
- Let's have your company, or, if you please,
- Haste there before us: I constantly do think —
- Or rather, call my thought a certain knowledge —
- My brother Troilus lodges there to-night:
- Rouse him and give him note of our approach.
- With the whole quality wherefore: I fear
- We shall be much unwelcome.
- AENEAS
- That I assure you:
- Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece
- Than Cressid borne from Troy.
- PARIS
- There is no help;
- The bitter disposition of the time
- Will have it so. On, lord; we'll follow you.
- AENEAS
- Good morrow, all.
Exit with Servant
- PARIS
- And tell me, noble Diomed, faith, tell me true,
- Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship,
- Who, in your thoughts, merits fair Helen best,
- Myself or Menelaus?
- DIOMEDES
- Both alike:
- He merits well to have her, that doth seek her,
- Not making any scruple of her soilure,
- With such a hell of pain and world of charge,
- And you as well to keep her, that defend her,
- Not palating the taste of her dishonour,
- With such a costly loss of wealth and friends:
- He, like a puling cuckold, would drink up
- The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece;
- You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins
- Are pleased to breed out your inheritors:
- Both merits poised, each weighs nor less nor more;
- But he as he, the heavier for a whore.

- DIOMEDES
- She's bitter to her country: hear me, Paris:
- For every false drop in her bawdy veins
- A Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scruple
- Of her contaminated carrion weight,
- A Trojan hath been slain: since she could speak,
- She hath not given so many good words breath
- As for her Greeks and Trojans suffer'd death.
- PARIS
- Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do,
- Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy:
- But we in silence hold this virtue well,
- We'll but commend what we intend to sell.
- Here lies our way.
Exeunt
SCENE II. The same. Court of Pandarus' house.
Enter TROILUS and CRESSIDA
- TROILUS
- Dear, trouble not yourself: the morn is cold.
- CRESSIDA
- Then, sweet my lord, I'll call mine uncle down;
- He shall unbolt the gates.
- TROILUS
- Trouble him not;
- To bed, to bed: sleep kill those pretty eyes,
- And give as soft attachment to thy senses
- As infants' empty of all thought!
- CRESSIDA
- Good morrow, then.
- TROILUS
- I prithee now, to bed.
- CRESSIDA
- Are you a-weary of me?
- TROILUS
- O Cressida! but that the busy day,
- Waked by the lark, hath roused the ribald crows,
- And dreaming night will hide our joys no longer,
- I would not from thee.
- CRESSIDA
- Night hath been too brief.
- TROILUS
- Beshrew the witch! with venomous wights she stays
- As tediously as hell, but flies the grasps of love
- With wings more momentary-swift than thought.
- You will catch cold, and curse me.
- CRESSIDA
- Prithee, tarry:
- You men will never tarry.
- O foolish Cressid! I might have still held off,
- And then you would have tarried. Hark!
- there's one up.
- PANDARUS
- Within What, 's all the doors open here?
- TROILUS
- It is your uncle.
- CRESSIDA
- A pestilence on him! now will he be mocking:
- I shall have such a life!
Enter PANDARUS
- PANDARUS
- How now, how now! how go maidenheads? Here, you
- maid! where's my cousin Cressid?

- PANDARUS
- To do what? to do what? let her say
- what: what have I brought you to do?
- CRESSIDA
- Come, come, beshrew your heart! you'll ne'er be good,
- Nor suffer others.
- PANDARUS
- Ha! ha! Alas, poor wretch! ah, poor capocchia!
- hast not slept to-night? would he not, a naughty
- man, let it sleep? a bugbear take him!
- CRESSIDA
- Did not I tell you? Would he were knock'd i' the head!
- Knocking within
- Who's that at door? good uncle, go and see.
- My lord, come you again into my chamber:
- You smile and mock me, as if I meant naughtily.
- TROILUS
- Ha, ha!
- CRESSIDA
- Come, you are deceived, I think of no such thing.
- Knocking within
- How earnestly they knock! Pray you, come in:
- I would not for half Troy have you seen here.
Exeunt TROILUS and CRESSIDA
- PANDARUS
- Who's there? what's the matter? will you beat
- down the door? How now! what's the matter?
Enter AENEAS
- AENEAS
- Good morrow, lord, good morrow.
- PANDARUS
- Who's there? my Lord AEneas! By my troth,
- I knew you not: what news with you so early?
- AENEAS
- Is not Prince Troilus here?
- PANDARUS
- Here! what should he do here?
- AENEAS
- Come, he is here, my lord; do not deny him:
- It doth import him much to speak with me.
- PANDARUS
- Is he here, say you? 'tis more than I know, I'll
- be sworn: for my own part, I came in late. What
- should he do here?
- AENEAS
- Who! — nay, then: come, come, you'll do him wrong
- ere you're ware: you'll be so true to him, to be
- false to him: do not you know of him, but yet go
- fetch him hither; go.
Re-enter TROILUS
- TROILUS
- How now! what's the matter?
- AENEAS
- My lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you,
- My matter is so rash: there is at hand
- Paris your brother, and Deiphobus,
- The Grecian Diomed, and our Antenor
- Deliver'd to us; and for him forthwith,
- Ere the first sacrifice, within this hour,
- We must give up to Diomedes' hand
- The Lady Cressida.
- TROILUS
- Is it so concluded?
- AENEAS
- By Priam and the general state of Troy:
- They are at hand and ready to effect it.
- TROILUS
- How my achievements mock me!
- I will go meet them: and, my Lord AEneas,
- We met by chance; you did not find me here.
- AENEAS
- Good, good, my lord; the secrets of nature
- Have not more gift in taciturnity.
Exeunt TROILUS and AENEAS
- PANDARUS
- Is't possible? no sooner got but lost? The devil
- take Antenor! the young prince will go mad: a
- plague upon Antenor! I would they had broke 's neck!
Re-enter CRESSIDA
- CRESSIDA
- How now! what's the matter? who was here?
- PANDARUS
- Ah, ah!
- CRESSIDA
- Why sigh you so profoundly? where's my lord? gone!
- Tell me, sweet uncle, what's the matter?
- PANDARUS
- Would I were as deep under the earth as I am above!
- CRESSIDA
- O the gods! what's the matter?
- PANDARUS
- Prithee, get thee in: would thou hadst ne'er been
- born! I knew thou wouldst be his death. O, poor
- gentleman! A plague upon Antenor!
- CRESSIDA
- Good uncle, I beseech you, on my knees! beseech you,
- what's the matter?
- PANDARUS
- Thou must be gone, wench, thou must be gone; thou
- art changed for Antenor: thou must to thy father,
- and be gone from Troilus: 'twill be his death;
- 'twill be his bane; he cannot bear it.
- CRESSIDA
- O you immortal gods! I will not go.
- PANDARUS
- Thou must.
- CRESSIDA
- I will not, uncle: I have forgot my father;
- I know no touch of consanguinity;
- No kin no love, no blood, no soul so near me
- As the sweet Troilus. O you gods divine!
- Make Cressid's name the very crown of falsehood,
- If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,
- Do to this body what extremes you can;
- But the strong base and building of my love
- Is as the very centre of the earth,
- Drawing all things to it. I'll go in and weep —
- PANDARUS
- Do, do.
- CRESSIDA
- Tear my bright hair and scratch my praised cheeks,
- Crack my clear voice with sobs and break my heart
- With sounding Troilus. I will not go from Troy.
Exeunt
SCENE III. The same. Street before Pandarus' house.
Enter PARIS, TROILUS, AENEAS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR,
and DIOMEDES
- PARIS
- It is great morning, and the hour prefix'd
- Of her delivery to this valiant Greek
- Comes fast upon. Good my brother Troilus,
- Tell you the lady what she is to do,
- And haste her to the purpose.
- TROILUS
- Walk into her house;
- I'll bring her to the Grecian presently:
- And to his hand when I deliver her,
- Think it an altar, and thy brother Troilus
- A priest there offering to it his own heart.
Exit
- PARIS
- I know what 'tis to love;
- And would, as I shall pity, I could help!
- Please you walk in, my lords.
Exeunt
SCENE IV. The same. Pandarus' house.
Enter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA
- PANDARUS
- Be moderate, be moderate.
- CRESSIDA
- Why tell you me of moderation?
- The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste,
- And violenteth in a sense as strong
- As that which causeth it: how can I moderate it?
- If I could temporize with my affection,
- Or brew it to a weak and colder palate,
- The like allayment could I give my grief.
- My love admits no qualifying dross;
- No more my grief, in such a precious loss.
- PANDARUS
- Here, here, here he comes.
- Enter TROILUS
- Ah, sweet ducks!
- CRESSIDA
- O Troilus! Troilus!
Embracing him
- PANDARUS
- What a pair of spectacles is here!
- Let me embrace too. 'O heart,' as the goodly saying is,
- ' — O heart, heavy heart,
- Why sigh'st thou without breaking?
- where he answers again,
- 'Because thou canst not ease thy smart
- By friendship nor by speaking.'
- There was never a truer rhyme. Let us cast away
- nothing, for we may live to have need of such a
- verse: we see it, we see it. How now, lambs?
- TROILUS
- Cressid, I love thee in so strain'd a purity,
- That the bless'd gods, as angry with my fancy,
- More bright in zeal than the devotion which
- Cold lips blow to their deities, take thee from me.
- CRESSIDA
- Have the gods envy?
- PANDARUS
- Ay, ay, ay, ay; 'tis too plain a case.
- CRESSIDA
- And is it true that I must go from Troy?
- TROILUS
- A hateful truth.
- CRESSIDA
- What, and from Troilus too?
- TROILUS
- From Troy and Troilus.
- CRESSIDA
- Is it possible?
- TROILUS
- And suddenly; where injury of chance
- Puts back leave-taking, justles roughly by
- All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips
- Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents
- Our lock'd embrasures, strangles our dear vows
- Even in the birth of our own labouring breath:
- We two, that with so many thousand sighs
- Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves
- With the rude brevity and discharge of one.
- Injurious time now with a robber's haste
- Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how:
- As many farewells as be stars in heaven,
- With distinct breath and consign'd kisses to them,
- He fumbles up into a lose adieu,
- And scants us with a single famish'd kiss,
- Distasted with the salt of broken tears.
- AENEAS
- Within My lord, is the lady ready?
- TROILUS
- Hark! you are call'd: some say the Genius so
- Cries 'come' to him that instantly must die.
- Bid them have patience; she shall come anon.
- PANDARUS
- Where are my tears? rain, to lay this wind, or
- my heart will be blown up by the root.
Exit
- CRESSIDA
- I must then to the Grecians?
- TROILUS
- No remedy.
- CRESSIDA
- A woful Cressid 'mongst the merry Greeks!
- When shall we see again?
- TROILUS
- Hear me, my love: be thou but true of heart —
- CRESSIDA
- I true! how now! what wicked deem is this?
- TROILUS
- Nay, we must use expostulation kindly,
- For it is parting from us:
- I speak not 'be thou true,' as fearing thee,
- For I will throw my glove to Death himself,
- That there's no maculation in thy heart:
- But 'be thou true,' say I, to fashion in
- My sequent protestation; be thou true,
- And I will see thee.
- CRESSIDA
- O, you shall be exposed, my lord, to dangers
- As infinite as imminent! but I'll be true.
- TROILUS
- And I'll grow friend with danger. Wear this sleeve.
- CRESSIDA
- And you this glove. When shall I see you?
- TROILUS
- I will corrupt the Grecian sentinels,
- To give thee nightly visitation.
- But yet be true.
- CRESSIDA
- O heavens! 'be true' again!
- TROILUS
- Hear while I speak it, love:
- The Grecian youths are full of quality;
- They're loving, well composed with gifts of nature,
- Flowing and swelling o'er with arts and exercise:
- How novelty may move, and parts with person,
- Alas, a kind of godly jealousy —
- Which, I beseech you, call a virtuous sin —
- Makes me afeard.
- CRESSIDA
- O heavens! you love me not.
- TROILUS
- Die I a villain, then!
- In this I do not call your faith in question
- So mainly as my merit: I cannot sing,
- Nor heel the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk,
- Nor play at subtle games; fair virtues all,
- To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant:
- But I can tell that in each grace of these
- There lurks a still and dumb-discoursive devil
- That tempts most cunningly: but be not tempted.
- CRESSIDA
- Do you think I will?
- TROILUS
- No.
- But something may be done that we will not:
- And sometimes we are devils to ourselves,
- When we will tempt the frailty of our powers,
- Presuming on their changeful potency.
- AENEAS
- Within Nay, good my lord —
- TROILUS
- Come, kiss; and let us part.
- PARIS
- Within Brother Troilus!
- TROILUS
- Good brother, come you hither;
- And bring AEneas and the Grecian with you.
- CRESSIDA
- My lord, will you be true?
- TROILUS
- Who, I? alas, it is my vice, my fault:
- Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion,
- I with great truth catch mere simplicity;
- Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,
- With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.
- Fear not my truth: the moral of my wit
- Is 'plain and true;' there's all the reach of it.
- Enter AENEAS, PARIS, ANTENOR, DEIPHOBUS,
and DIOMEDES
- Welcome, Sir Diomed! here is the lady
- Which for Antenor we deliver you:
- At the port, lord, I'll give her to thy hand,
- And by the way possess thee what she is.
- Entreat her fair; and, by my soul, fair Greek,
- If e'er thou stand at mercy of my sword,
- Name Cressida and thy life shall be as safe
- As Priam is in Ilion.
- DIOMEDES
- Fair Lady Cressid,
- So please you, save the thanks this prince expects:
- The lustre in your eye, heaven in your cheek,
- Pleads your fair usage; and to Diomed
- You shall be mistress, and command him wholly.
- TROILUS
- Grecian, thou dost not use me courteously,
- To shame the zeal of my petition to thee
- In praising her: I tell thee, lord of Greece,
- She is as far high-soaring o'er thy praises
- As thou unworthy to be call'd her servant.
- I charge thee use her well, even for my charge;
- For, by the dreadful Pluto, if thou dost not,
- Though the great bulk Achilles be thy guard,
- I'll cut thy throat.
- DIOMEDES
- O, be not moved, Prince Troilus:
- Let me be privileged by my place and message,
- To be a speaker free; when I am hence
- I'll answer to my lust: and know you, lord,
- I'll nothing do on charge: to her own worth
- She shall be prized; but that you say 'be't so,'
- I'll speak it in my spirit and honour, 'no.'
- TROILUS
- Come, to the port. I'll tell thee, Diomed,
- This brave shall oft make thee to hide thy head.
- Lady, give me your hand, and, as we walk,
- To our own selves bend we our needful talk.
Exeunt TROILUS, CRESSIDA, and DIOMEDES
Trumpet within
- PARIS
- Hark! Hector's trumpet.
- AENEAS
- How have we spent this morning!
- The prince must think me tardy and remiss,
- That sore to ride before him to the field.
- PARIS
- 'Tis Troilus' fault: come, come, to field with him.
- DEIPHOBUS
- Let us make ready straight.
- AENEAS
- Yea, with a bridegroom's fresh alacrity,
- Let us address to tend on Hector's heels:
- The glory of our Troy doth this day lie
- On his fair worth and single chivalry.
Exeunt
SCENE V. The Grecian camp. Lists set out.
Enter AJAX, armed; AGAMEMNON, ACHILLES, PATROCLUS,
MENELAUS, ULYSSES, NESTOR, and others
- AGAMEMNON
- Here art thou in appointment fresh and fair,
- Anticipating time with starting courage.
- Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy,
- Thou dreadful Ajax; that the appalled air
- May pierce the head of the great combatant
- And hale him hither.
- AJAX
- Thou, trumpet, there's my purse.
- Now crack thy lungs, and split thy brazen pipe:
- Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek
- Outswell the colic of puff'd Aquilon:
- Come, stretch thy chest and let thy eyes spout blood;
- Thou blow'st for Hector.
Trumpet sounds
- ULYSSES
- No trumpet answers.
- ACHILLES
- 'Tis but early days.
- AGAMEMNON
- Is not yond Diomed, with Calchas' daughter?
- ULYSSES
- 'Tis he, I ken the manner of his gait;
- He rises on the toe: that spirit of his
- In aspiration lifts him from the earth.
Enter DIOMEDES, with CRESSIDA
- AGAMEMNON
- Is this the Lady Cressid?
- DIOMEDES
- Even she.
- AGAMEMNON
- Most dearly welcome to the Greeks, sweet lady.
- NESTOR
- Our general doth salute you with a kiss.
- ULYSSES
- Yet is the kindness but particular;
- 'Twere better she were kiss'd in general.
- NESTOR
- And very courtly counsel: I'll begin.
- So much for Nestor.
- ACHILLES
- I'll take what winter from your lips, fair lady:
- Achilles bids you welcome.
- MENELAUS
- I had good argument for kissing once.
- PATROCLUS
- But that's no argument for kissing now;
- For this popp'd Paris in his hardiment,
- And parted thus you and your argument.
- ULYSSES
- O deadly gall, and theme of all our scorns!
- For which we lose our heads to gild his horns.
- PATROCLUS
- The first was Menelaus' kiss; this, mine:
- Patroclus kisses you.
- MENELAUS
- O, this is trim!
- PATROCLUS
- Paris and I kiss evermore for him.
- MENELAUS
- I'll have my kiss, sir. Lady, by your leave.
- CRESSIDA
- In kissing, do you render or receive?
- PATROCLUS
- Both take and give.
- CRESSIDA
- I'll make my match to live,
- The kiss you take is better than you give;
- Therefore no kiss.
- MENELAUS
- I'll give you boot, I'll give you three for one.
- CRESSIDA
- You're an odd man; give even or give none.
- MENELAUS
- An odd man, lady! every man is odd.
- CRESSIDA
- No, Paris is not; for you know 'tis true,
- That you are odd, and he is even with you.
- MENELAUS
- You fillip me o' the head.
- CRESSIDA
- No, I'll be sworn.
- ULYSSES
- It were no match, your nail against his horn.
- May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?
- CRESSIDA
- You may.
- ULYSSES
- I do desire it.
- CRESSIDA
- Why, beg, then.
- ULYSSES
- Why then for Venus' sake, give me a kiss,
- When Helen is a maid again, and his.
- CRESSIDA
- I am your debtor, claim it when 'tis due.

- DIOMEDES
- Lady, a word: I'll bring you to your father.
Exit with CRESSIDA
- NESTOR
- A woman of quick sense.
- ULYSSES
- Fie, fie upon her!
- There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
- Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
- At every joint and motive of her body.
- O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue,
- That give accosting welcome ere it comes,
- And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts
- To every ticklish reader! set them down
- For sluttish spoils of opportunity
- And daughters of the game.
Trumpet within
- ALL
- The Trojans' trumpet.
- AGAMEMNON
- Yonder comes the troop.
Enter HECTOR, armed; AENEAS, TROILUS, and other
Trojans, with Attendants
- AENEAS
- Hail, all you state of Greece! what shall be done
- To him that victory commands? or do you purpose
- A victor shall be known? will you the knights
- Shall to the edge of all extremity
- Pursue each other, or shall be divided
- By any voice or order of the field?
- Hector bade ask.
- AGAMEMNON
- Which way would Hector have it?
- AENEAS
- He cares not; he'll obey conditions.
- ACHILLES
- 'Tis done like Hector; but securely done,
- A little proudly, and great deal misprizing
- The knight opposed.
- AENEAS
- If not Achilles, sir,
- What is your name?
- ACHILLES
- If not Achilles, nothing.
- AENEAS
- Therefore Achilles: but, whate'er, know this:
- In the extremity of great and little,
- Valour and pride excel themselves in Hector;
- The one almost as infinite as all,
- The other blank as nothing. Weigh him well,
- And that which looks like pride is courtesy.
- This Ajax is half made of Hector's blood:
- In love whereof, half Hector stays at home;
- Half heart, half hand, half Hector comes to seek
- This blended knight, half Trojan and half Greek.
- ACHILLES
- A maiden battle, then? O, I perceive you.
Re-enter DIOMEDES
- AGAMEMNON
- Here is Sir Diomed. Go, gentle knight,
- Stand by our Ajax: as you and Lord AEneas
- Consent upon the order of their fight,
- So be it; either to the uttermost,
- Or else a breath: the combatants being kin
- Half stints their strife before their strokes begin.
AJAX and HECTOR enter the lists
- ULYSSES
- They are opposed already.
- AGAMEMNON
- What Trojan is that same that looks so heavy?
- ULYSSES
- The youngest son of Priam, a true knight,
- Not yet mature, yet matchless, firm of word,
- Speaking in deeds and deedless in his tongue;
- Not soon provoked nor being provoked soon calm'd:
- His heart and hand both open and both free;
- For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows;
- Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty,
- Nor dignifies an impure thought with breath;
- Manly as Hector, but more dangerous;
- For Hector in his blaze of wrath subscribes
- To tender objects, but he in heat of action
- Is more vindicative than jealous love:
- They call him Troilus, and on him erect
- A second hope, as fairly built as Hector.
- Thus says AEneas; one that knows the youth
- Even to his inches, and with private soul
- Did in great Ilion thus translate him to me.
Alarum. Hector and Ajax fight
- AGAMEMNON
- They are in action.
- NESTOR
- Now, Ajax, hold thine own!
- TROILUS
- Hector, thou sleep'st;
- Awake thee!
- AGAMEMNON
- His blows are well disposed: there, Ajax!
- DIOMEDES
- You must no more.
Trumpets cease
- AENEAS
- Princes, enough, so please you.
- AJAX
- I am not warm yet; let us fight again.
- DIOMEDES
- As Hector pleases.
- HECTOR
- Why, then will I no more:
- Thou art, great lord, my father's sister's son,
- A cousin-german to great Priam's seed;
- The obligation of our blood forbids
- A gory emulation 'twixt us twain:
- Were thy commixtion Greek and Trojan so
- That thou couldst say 'This hand is Grecian all,
- And this is Trojan; the sinews of this leg
- All Greek, and this all Troy; my mother's blood
- Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister
- Bounds in my father's;' by Jove multipotent,
- Thou shouldst not bear from me a Greekish member
- Wherein my sword had not impressure made
- Of our rank feud: but the just gods gainsay
- That any drop thou borrow'dst from thy mother,
- My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword
- Be drain'd! Let me embrace thee, Ajax:
- By him that thunders, thou hast lusty arms;
- Hector would have them fall upon him thus:
- Cousin, all honour to thee!
- AJAX
- I thank thee, Hector
- Thou art too gentle and too free a man:
- I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence
- A great addition earned in thy death.
- HECTOR
- Not Neoptolemus so mirable,
- On whose bright crest Fame with her loud'st Oyes
- Cries 'This is he,' could promise to himself
- A thought of added honour torn from Hector.
- AENEAS
- There is expectance here from both the sides,
- What further you will do.
- HECTOR
- We'll answer it;
- The issue is embracement: Ajax, farewell.
- AJAX
- If I might in entreaties find success —
- As seld I have the chance — I would desire
- My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.
- DIOMEDES
- 'Tis Agamemnon's wish, and great Achilles
- Doth long to see unarm'd the valiant Hector.
- HECTOR
- AEneas, call my brother Troilus to me,
- And signify this loving interview
- To the expecters of our Trojan part;
- Desire them home.
- AJAX
- Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.
- HECTOR
- The worthiest of them tell me name by name;
- But for Achilles, mine own searching eyes
- Shall find him by his large and portly size.
- AGAMEMNON
- Worthy of arms! as welcome as to one
- That would be rid of such an enemy;
- But that's no welcome: understand more clear,
- What's past and what's to come is strew'd with husks
- And formless ruin of oblivion;
- But in this extant moment, faith and troth,
- Strain'd purely from all hollow bias-drawing,
- Bids thee, with most divine integrity,
- From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.
- HECTOR
- I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon.
- AGAMEMNON
- To TROILUS My well-famed lord of Troy, no
- less to you.
- MENELAUS
- Let me confirm my princely brother's greeting:
- You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.
- HECTOR
- Who must we answer?
- AENEAS
- The noble Menelaus.
- HECTOR
- O, you, my lord? by Mars his gauntlet, thanks!
- Mock not, that I affect the untraded oath;
- Your quondam wife swears still by Venus' glove:
- She's well, but bade me not commend her to you.
- MENELAUS
- Name her not now, sir; she's a deadly theme.
- HECTOR
- O, pardon; I offend.
- NESTOR
- I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft
- Labouring for destiny make cruel way
- Through ranks of Greekish youth, and I have seen thee,
- As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed,
- Despising many forfeits and subduements,
- When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i' the air,
- Not letting it decline on the declined,
- That I have said to some my standers by
- 'Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!'
- And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath,
- When that a ring of Greeks have hemm'd thee in,
- Like an Olympian wrestling: this have I seen;
- But this thy countenance, still lock'd in steel,
- I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire,
- And once fought with him: he was a soldier good;
- But, by great Mars, the captain of us all,
- Never saw like thee. Let an old man embrace thee;
- And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.
- AENEAS
- 'Tis the old Nestor.
- HECTOR
- Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle,
- That hast so long walk'd hand in hand with time:
- Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee.
- NESTOR
- I would my arms could match thee in contention,
- As they contend with thee in courtesy.
- HECTOR
- I would they could.
- NESTOR
- Ha!
- By this white beard, I'ld fight with thee to-morrow.
- Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time.
- ULYSSES
- I wonder now how yonder city stands
- When we have here her base and pillar by us.
- HECTOR
- I know your favour, Lord Ulysses, well.
- Ah, sir, there's many a Greek and Trojan dead,
- Since first I saw yourself and Diomed
- In Ilion, on your Greekish embassy.
- ULYSSES
- Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue:
- My prophecy is but half his journey yet;
- For yonder walls, that pertly front your town,
- Yond towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,
- Must kiss their own feet.
- HECTOR
- I must not believe you:
- There they stand yet, and modestly I think,
- The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost
- A drop of Grecian blood: the end crowns all,
- And that old common arbitrator, Time,
- Will one day end it.
- ULYSSES
- So to him we leave it.
- Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome:
- After the general, I beseech you next
- To feast with me and see me at my tent.
- ACHILLES
- I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses, thou!
- Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee;
- I have with exact view perused thee, Hector,
- And quoted joint by joint.
- HECTOR
- Is this Achilles?
- ACHILLES
- I am Achilles.
- HECTOR
- Stand fair, I pray thee: let me look on thee.
- ACHILLES
- Behold thy fill.
- HECTOR
- Nay, I have done already.
- ACHILLES
- Thou art too brief: I will the second time,
- As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.
- HECTOR
- O, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er;
- But there's more in me than thou understand'st.
- Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?
- ACHILLES
- Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his body
- Shall I destroy him? whether there, or there, or there?
- That I may give the local wound a name
- And make distinct the very breach whereout
- Hector's great spirit flew: answer me, heavens!
- HECTOR
- It would discredit the blest gods, proud man,
- To answer such a question: stand again:
- Think'st thou to catch my life so pleasantly
- As to prenominate in nice conjecture
- Where thou wilt hit me dead?
- ACHILLES
- I tell thee, yea.
- HECTOR
- Wert thou an oracle to tell me so,
- I'd not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well;
- For I'll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there;
- But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm,
- I'll kill thee every where, yea, o'er and o'er.
- You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag;
- His insolence draws folly from my lips;
- But I'll endeavour deeds to match these words,
- Or may I never —
- AJAX
- Do not chafe thee, cousin:
- And you, Achilles, let these threats alone,
- Till accident or purpose bring you to't:
- You may have every day enough of Hector
- If you have stomach; the general state, I fear,
- Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.
- HECTOR
- I pray you, let us see you in the field:
- We have had pelting wars, since you refused
- The Grecians' cause.
- ACHILLES
- Dost thou entreat me, Hector?
- To-morrow do I meet thee, fell as death;
- To-night all friends.
- HECTOR
- Thy hand upon that match.
- AGAMEMNON
- First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent;
- There in the full convive we: afterwards,
- As Hector's leisure and your bounties shall
- Concur together, severally entreat him.
- Beat loud the tabourines, let the trumpets blow,
- That this great soldier may his welcome know.
Exeunt all except TROILUS and ULYSSES
- TROILUS
- My Lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,
- In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?
- ULYSSES
- At Menelaus' tent, most princely Troilus:
- There Diomed doth feast with him to-night;
- Who neither looks upon the heaven nor earth,
- But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
- On the fair Cressid.
- TROILUS
- Shall sweet lord, be bound to you so much,
- After we part from Agamemnon's tent,
- To bring me thither?
- ULYSSES
- You shall command me, sir.
- As gentle tell me, of what honour was
- This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there
- That wails her absence?
- TROILUS
- O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars
- A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord?
- She was beloved, she loved; she is, and doth:
- But still sweet love is food for fortune's tooth.
Exeunt
ACT V
SCENE I. The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent.
Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS
- ACHILLES
- I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night,
- Which with my scimitar I'll cool to-morrow.
- Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.
- PATROCLUS
- Here comes Thersites.
Enter THERSITES
- ACHILLES
- How now, thou core of envy!
- Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news?

- ACHILLES
- From whence, fragment?
- THERSITES
- Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.
- PATROCLUS
- Who keeps the tent now?
- THERSITES
- The surgeon's box, or the patient's wound.
- PATROCLUS
- Well said, adversity! and what need these tricks?
- THERSITES
- Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk:
- thou art thought to be Achilles' male varlet.
- PATROCLUS
- Male varlet, you rogue! what's that?
- THERSITES
- Why, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases
- of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs,
- loads o' gravel i' the back, lethargies, cold
- palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing
- lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas,
- limekilns i' the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the
- rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take
- again such preposterous discoveries!
- PATROCLUS
- Why thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest
- thou to curse thus?
- THERSITES
- Do I curse thee?
- PATROCLUS
- Why no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson
- indistinguishable cur, no.
- THERSITES
- No! why art thou then exasperate, thou idle
- immaterial skein of sleave-silk, thou green sarcenet
- flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's
- purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered
- with such waterflies, diminutives of nature!
- PATROCLUS
- Out, gall!
- THERSITES
- Finch-egg!
- ACHILLES
- My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
- From my great purpose in to-morrow's battle.
- Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,
- A token from her daughter, my fair love,
- Both taxing me and gaging me to keep
- An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it:
- Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay;
- My major vow lies here, this I'll obey.
- Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent:
- This night in banqueting must all be spent.
- Away, Patroclus!

- Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough and one
- that loves quails; but he has not so much brain as
- earwax: and the goodly transformation of Jupiter
- there, his brother, the bull — the primitive statue,
- and oblique memorial of cuckolds; a thrifty
- shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother's
- leg — to what form but that he is, should wit larded
- with malice and malice forced with wit turn him to?
 To be a
- dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an
- owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would
- not care; but to be Menelaus, I would conspire
- against destiny. Ask me not, what I would be, if I
- were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse
- of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus! Hey-day!
- spirits and fires!
Enter HECTOR, TROILUS, AJAX, AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES,
NESTOR, MENELAUS, and DIOMEDES, with lights
- AGAMEMNON
- We go wrong, we go wrong.
- AJAX
- No, yonder 'tis;
- There, where we see the lights.
- HECTOR
- I trouble you.
- AJAX
- No, not a whit.
- ULYSSES
- Here comes himself to guide you.
Re-enter ACHILLES
- ACHILLES
- Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, princes all.
- AGAMEMNON
- So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good night.
- Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.
- HECTOR
- Thanks and good night to the Greeks' general.
- MENELAUS
- Good night, my lord.
- HECTOR
- Good night, sweet lord Menelaus.
- THERSITES
- Sweet draught: 'sweet' quoth 'a! sweet sink,
- sweet sewer.
- ACHILLES
- Good night and welcome, both at once, to those
- That go or tarry.
- AGAMEMNON
- Good night.
Exeunt AGAMEMNON and MENELAUS
- ACHILLES
- Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed,
- Keep Hector company an hour or two.
- DIOMEDES
- I cannot, lord; I have important business,
- The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector.
- HECTOR
- Give me your hand.
- ULYSSES
- Aside to TROILUS Follow his torch; he goes to
- Calchas' tent:
- I'll keep you company.
- TROILUS
- Sweet sir, you honour me.
- HECTOR
- And so, good night.
Exit DIOMEDES; ULYSSES and TROILUS following
- ACHILLES
- Come, come, enter my tent.
Exeunt ACHILLES, HECTOR, AJAX, and NESTOR
- THERSITES
- That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most
- unjust knave; I will no more trust him when he leers
- than I will a serpent when he hisses: he will spend
- his mouth, and promise, like Brabbler the hound:
- but when he performs, astronomers foretell it; it
- is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun
- borrows of the moon, when Diomed keeps his
- word. I will rather leave to see Hector, than
- not to dog him: they say he keeps a Trojan
- drab, and uses the traitor Calchas' tent: I'll
- after. Nothing but lechery! all incontinent varlets!
Exit
SCENE II. The same. Before Calchas' tent.
Enter DIOMEDES
- DIOMEDES
- What, are you up here, ho? speak.
- CALCHAS
- Within Who calls?
- DIOMEDES
- Calchas, I think. Where's your daughter?
- CALCHAS
- Within She comes to you.
Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance;
after them, THERSITES
- ULYSSES
- Stand where the torch may not discover us.
Enter CRESSIDA
- TROILUS
- Cressid comes forth to him.
- DIOMEDES
- How now, my charge!
- CRESSIDA
- Now, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you.
Whispers
- TROILUS
- Yea, so familiar!
- ULYSSES
- She will sing any man at first sight.
- THERSITES
- And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff;
- she's noted.
- DIOMEDES
- Will you remember?
- CRESSIDA
- Remember! yes.
- DIOMEDES
- Nay, but do, then;
- And let your mind be coupled with your words.
- TROILUS
- What should she remember?
- ULYSSES
- List.
- CRESSIDA
- Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.
- THERSITES
- Roguery!
- DIOMEDES
- Nay, then —
- CRESSIDA
- I'll tell you what —
- DIOMEDES
- Foh, foh! come, tell a pin: you are forsworn.
- CRESSIDA
- In faith, I cannot: what would you have me do?
- THERSITES
- A juggling trick — to be secretly open.
- DIOMEDES
- What did you swear you would bestow on me?
- CRESSIDA
- I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath;
- Bid me do any thing but that, sweet Greek.
- DIOMEDES
- Good night.
- TROILUS
- Hold, patience!
- ULYSSES
- How now, Trojan!
- CRESSIDA
- Diomed —
- DIOMEDES
- No, no, good night: I'll be your fool no more.
- TROILUS
- Thy better must.
- CRESSIDA
- Hark, one word in your ear.
- TROILUS
- O plague and madness!
- ULYSSES
- You are moved, prince; let us depart, I pray you,
- Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself
- To wrathful terms: this place is dangerous;
- The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.
- TROILUS
- Behold, I pray you!
- ULYSSES
- Nay, good my lord, go off:
- You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.
- TROILUS
- I pray thee, stay.
- ULYSSES
- You have not patience; come.

- DIOMEDES
- And so, good night.
- CRESSIDA
- Nay, but you part in anger.
- TROILUS
- Doth that grieve thee?
- O wither'd truth!
- ULYSSES
- Why, how now, lord!
- TROILUS
- By Jove,
- I will be patient.
- CRESSIDA
- Guardian! — why, Greek!
- DIOMEDES
- Foh, foh! adieu; you palter.
- CRESSIDA
- In faith, I do not: come hither once again.
- ULYSSES
- You shake, my lord, at something: will you go?
- You will break out.
- TROILUS
- She strokes his cheek!
- ULYSSES
- Come, come.
- TROILUS
- Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word:
- There is between my will and all offences
- A guard of patience: stay a little while.
 Fry, lechery, fry!
- DIOMEDES
- But will you, then?
- CRESSIDA
- In faith, I will, la; never trust me else.
- DIOMEDES
- Give me some token for the surety of it.
- CRESSIDA
- I'll fetch you one.
Exit
- ULYSSES
- You have sworn patience.
- TROILUS
- Fear me not, sweet lord;
- I will not be myself, nor have cognition
- Of what I feel: I am all patience.
Re-enter CRESSIDA
- THERSITES
- Now the pledge; now, now, now!
- CRESSIDA
- Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.
- TROILUS
- O beauty! where is thy faith?
- ULYSSES
- My lord —
- TROILUS
- I will be patient; outwardly I will.
- CRESSIDA
- You look upon that sleeve; behold it well.
- He loved me — O false wench! — Give't me again.
- DIOMEDES
- Whose was't?
- CRESSIDA
- It is no matter, now I have't again.
- I will not meet with you to-morrow night:
- I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.
- THERSITES
- Now she sharpens: well said, whetstone!
- DIOMEDES
- I shall have it.
- CRESSIDA
- What, this?
- DIOMEDES
- Ay, that.
- CRESSIDA
- O, all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge!
- Thy master now lies thinking in his bed
- Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove,
- And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,
- As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me;
- He that takes that doth take my heart withal.
- DIOMEDES
- I had your heart before, this follows it.
- TROILUS
- I did swear patience.
- CRESSIDA
- You shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not;
- I'll give you something else.
- DIOMEDES
- I will have this: whose was it?
- CRESSIDA
- It is no matter.
- DIOMEDES
- Come, tell me whose it was.
- CRESSIDA
- 'Twas one's that loved me better than you will.
- But, now you have it, take it.
- DIOMEDES
- Whose was it?

- DIOMEDES
- To-morrow will I wear it on my helm,
- And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.
- TROILUS
- Wert thou the devil, and worest it on thy horn,
- It should be challenged.
- CRESSIDA
- Well, well, 'tis done, 'tis past: and yet it is not;
- I will not keep my word.
- DIOMEDES
- Why, then, farewell;
- Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.
- CRESSIDA
- You shall not go: one cannot speak a word,
- But it straight starts you.
- DIOMEDES
- I do not like this fooling.
- THERSITES
- Nor I, by Pluto: but that that likes not you pleases me best.
- DIOMEDES
- What, shall I come? the hour?
- CRESSIDA
- Ay, come: — O Jove! — do come: — I shall be plagued.
- DIOMEDES
- Farewell till then.
- CRESSIDA
- Good night: I prithee, come.
- Exit DIOMEDES
- Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee
- But with my heart the other eye doth see.
- Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find,
- The error of our eye directs our mind:
- What error leads must err; O, then conclude
- Minds sway'd by eyes are full of turpitude.
Exit
- THERSITES
- A proof of strength she could not publish more,
- Unless she said ' My mind is now turn'd whore.'
- ULYSSES
- All's done, my lord.
- TROILUS
- It is.
- ULYSSES
- Why stay we, then?
- TROILUS
- To make a recordation to my soul
- Of every syllable that here was spoke.
- But if I tell how these two did co-act,
- Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?
- Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,
- An esperance so obstinately strong,
- That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears,
- As if those organs had deceptious functions,
- Created only to calumniate.
- Was Cressid here?
- ULYSSES
- I cannot conjure, Trojan.
- TROILUS
- She was not, sure.
- ULYSSES
- Most sure she was.
- TROILUS
- Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.
- ULYSSES
- Nor mine, my lord: Cressid was here but now.
- TROILUS
- Let it not be believed for womanhood!
- Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage
- To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme,
- For depravation, to square the general sex
- By Cressid's rule: rather think this not Cressid.
- ULYSSES
- What hath she done, prince, that can soil our mothers?
- TROILUS
- Nothing at all, unless that this were she.
- THERSITES
- Will he swagger himself out on's own eyes?
- TROILUS
- This she? no, this is Diomed's Cressida:
- If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
- If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,
- If sanctimony be the gods' delight,
- If there be rule in unity itself,
- This is not she. O madness of discourse,
- That cause sets up with and against itself!
- Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt
- Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
- Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid.
- Within my soul there doth conduce a fight
- Of this strange nature that a thing inseparate
- Divides more wider than the sky and earth,
- And yet the spacious breadth of this division
- Admits no orifex for a point as subtle
- As Ariachne's broken woof to enter.
- Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates;
- Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven:
- Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself;
- The bonds of heaven are slipp'd, dissolved, and loosed;
- And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
- The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
- The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics
- Of her o'er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.
- ULYSSES
- May worthy Troilus be half attach'd
- With that which here his passion doth express?
- TROILUS
- Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well
- In characters as red as Mars his heart
- Inflamed with Venus: never did young man fancy
- With so eternal and so fix'd a soul.
- Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love,
- So much by weight hate I her Diomed:
- That sleeve is mine that he'll bear on his helm;
- Were it a casque composed by Vulcan's skill,
- My sword should bite it: not the dreadful spout
- Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
- Constringed in mass by the almighty sun,
- Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune's ear
- In his descent than shall my prompted sword
- Falling on Diomed.
- THERSITES
- He'll tickle it for his concupy.
- TROILUS
- O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false!
- Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,
- And they'll seem glorious.
- ULYSSES
- O, contain yourself
- Your passion draws ears hither.
Enter AENEAS
- AENEAS
- I have been seeking you this hour, my lord:
- Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy;
- Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.
- TROILUS
- Have with you, prince. My courteous lord, adieu.
- Farewell, revolted fair! and, Diomed,
- Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head!
- ULYSSES
- I'll bring you to the gates.
- TROILUS
- Accept distracted thanks.
Exeunt TROILUS, AENEAS, and ULYSSES
- THERSITES
- Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would
- croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode.
- Patroclus will give me any thing for the
- intelligence of this whore: the parrot will not
- do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab.
- Lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery; nothing
- else holds fashion: a burning devil take them!
Exit
SCENE III. Troy. Before Priam's palace.
Enter HECTOR and ANDROMACHE
- ANDROMACHE
- When was my lord so much ungently temper'd,
- To stop his ears against admonishment?
- Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day.
- HECTOR
- You train me to offend you; get you in:
- By all the everlasting gods, I'll go!
- ANDROMACHE
- My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day.
- HECTOR
- No more, I say.
Enter CASSANDRA
- CASSANDRA
- Where is my brother Hector?

- Consort with me in loud and dear petition,
- Pursue we him on knees; for I have dream'd
- Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night
- Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.
- CASSANDRA
- O, 'tis true.
- HECTOR
- Ho! bid my trumpet sound!
- CASSANDRA
- No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother.
- HECTOR
- Be gone, I say: the gods have heard me swear.
- CASSANDRA
- The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows:
- They are polluted offerings, more abhorr'd
- Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.
- ANDROMACHE
- O, be persuaded! do not count it holy
- To hurt by being just: it is as lawful,
- For we would give much, to use violent thefts,
- And rob in the behalf of charity.
- CASSANDRA
- It is the purpose that makes strong the vow;
- But vows to every purpose must not hold:
- Unarm, sweet Hector.
- HECTOR
- Hold you still, I say;
- Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate:
- Lie every man holds dear; but the brave man
- Holds honour far more precious-dear than life.
- Enter TROILUS
- How now, young man! mean'st thou to fight to-day?
- ANDROMACHE
- Cassandra, call my father to persuade.
Exit CASSANDRA
- HECTOR
- No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth;
- I am to-day i' the vein of chivalry:
- Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong,
- And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.
- Unarm thee, go, and doubt thou not, brave boy,
- I'll stand to-day for thee and me and Troy.
- TROILUS
- Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
- Which better fits a lion than a man.
- HECTOR
- What vice is that, good Troilus? chide me for it.
- TROILUS
- When many times the captive Grecian falls,
- Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
- You bid them rise, and live.
- HECTOR
- O,'tis fair play.
- TROILUS
- Fool's play, by heaven, Hector.
- HECTOR
- How now! how now!
- TROILUS
- For the love of all the gods,
- Let's leave the hermit pity with our mothers,
- And when we have our armours buckled on,
- The venom'd vengeance ride upon our swords,
- Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth.
- HECTOR
- Fie, savage, fie!
- TROILUS
- Hector, then 'tis wars.
- HECTOR
- Troilus, I would not have you fight to-day.
- TROILUS
- Who should withhold me?
- Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars
- Beckoning with fiery truncheon my retire;
- Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,
- Their eyes o'ergalled with recourse of tears;
- Not you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,
- Opposed to hinder me, should stop my way,
- But by my ruin.
Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM
- CASSANDRA
- Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast:
- He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay,
- Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,
- Fall all together.
- PRIAM
- Come, Hector, come, go back:
- Thy wife hath dream'd; thy mother hath had visions;
- Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself
- Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt
- To tell thee that this day is ominous:
- Therefore, come back.
- HECTOR
- AEneas is a-field;
- And I do stand engaged to many Greeks,
- Even in the faith of valour, to appear
- This morning to them.
- PRIAM
- Ay, but thou shalt not go.
- HECTOR
- I must not break my faith.
- You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir,
- Let me not shame respect; but give me leave
- To take that course by your consent and voice,
- Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.
- CASSANDRA
- O Priam, yield not to him!
- ANDROMACHE
- Do not, dear father.
- HECTOR
- Andromache, I am offended with you:
- Upon the love you bear me, get you in.
Exit ANDROMACHE
- TROILUS
- This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl
- Makes all these bodements.
- CASSANDRA
- O, farewell, dear Hector!
- Look, how thou diest! look, how thy eye turns pale!
- Look, how thy wounds do bleed at many vents!
- Hark, how Troy roars! how Hecuba cries out!
- How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth!
- Behold, distraction, frenzy and amazement,
- Like witless antics, one another meet,
- And all cry, Hector! Hector's dead! O Hector!
- TROILUS
- Away! away!
- CASSANDRA
- Farewell: yet, soft! Hector! take my leave:
- Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.
Exit
- HECTOR
- You are amazed, my liege, at her exclaim:
- Go in and cheer the town: we'll forth and fight,
- Do deeds worth praise and tell you them at night.
- PRIAM
- Farewell: the gods with safety stand about thee!
Exeunt severally PRIAM and HECTOR. Alarums
- TROILUS
- They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe,
- I come to lose my arm, or win my sleeve.
Enter PANDARUS
- PANDARUS
- Do you hear, my lord? do you hear?
- TROILUS
- What now?
- PANDARUS
- Here's a letter come from yond poor girl.
- TROILUS
- Let me read.
- PANDARUS
- A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick so
- troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl;
- and what one thing, what another, that I shall
- leave you one o' these days: and I have a rheum
- in mine eyes too, and such an ache in my bones
- that, unless a man were cursed, I cannot tell what
- to think on't. What says she there?
- TROILUS
- Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart:
- The effect doth operate another way.
- Tearing the letter
- Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together.
- My love with words and errors still she feeds;
- But edifies another with her deeds.
Exeunt severally
SCENE IV. Plains between Troy and the Grecian camp.
Alarums: excursions. Enter THERSITES
- THERSITES
- Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go
- look on. That dissembling abominable varlets Diomed,
- has got that same scurvy doting foolish young knave's
- sleeve of Troy there in his helm: I would fain see
- them meet; that that same young Trojan ass, that
- loves the whore there, might send that Greekish
- whore-masterly villain, with the sleeve, back to the
- dissembling luxurious drab, of a sleeveless errand.
- O' the t'other side, the policy of those crafty
- swearing rascals, that stale old mouse-eaten dry
- cheese, Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Ulysses, is
- not proved worthy a blackberry: they set me up, in
- policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of
- as bad a kind, Achilles: and now is the cur Ajax
- prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm
- to-day; whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim
- barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion.
- Soft! here comes sleeve, and t'other.
Enter DIOMEDES, TROILUS following
- TROILUS
- Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river Styx,
- I would swim after.
- DIOMEDES
- Thou dost miscall retire:
- I do not fly, but advantageous care
- Withdrew me from the odds of multitude:
- Have at thee!
- THERSITES
- Hold thy whore, Grecian! — now for thy whore,
- Trojan! — now the sleeve, now the sleeve!
Exeunt TROILUS and DIOMEDES, fighting
Enter HECTOR
- HECTOR
- What art thou, Greek? art thou for Hector's match?
- Art thou of blood and honour?
- THERSITES
- No, no, I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave:
- a very filthy rogue.
- HECTOR
- I do believe thee: live.
Exit
- THERSITES
- God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a
- plague break thy neck for frightening me! What's
- become of the wenching rogues? I think they have
- swallowed one another: I would laugh at that
- miracle: yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself.
- I'll seek them.
Exit
SCENE V. Another part of the plains.
Enter DIOMEDES and a Servant
- DIOMEDES
- Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus' horse;
- Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid:
- Fellow, commend my service to her beauty;
- Tell her I have chastised the amorous Trojan,
- And am her knight by proof.
- Servant
- I go, my lord.
Exit
Enter AGAMEMNON
- AGAMEMNON
- Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamas
- Hath beat down Menon: bastard Margarelon
- Hath Doreus prisoner,
- And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam,
- Upon the pashed corses of the kings
- Epistrophus and Cedius: Polyxenes is slain,
- Amphimachus and Thoas deadly hurt,
- Patroclus ta'en or slain, and Palamedes
- Sore hurt and bruised: the dreadful Sagittary
- Appals our numbers: haste we, Diomed,
- To reinforcement, or we perish all.
Enter NESTOR
- NESTOR
- Go, bear Patroclus' body to Achilles;
- And bid the snail-paced Ajax arm for shame.

Enter ULYSSES
- ULYSSES
- O, courage, courage, princes! great Achilles
- Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance:
- Patroclus' wounds have roused his drowsy blood,
- Together with his mangled Myrmidons,
- That noseless, handless, hack'd and chipp'd, come to him,
- Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend
- And foams at mouth, and he is arm'd and at it,
- Roaring for Troilus, who hath done to-day
- Mad and fantastic execution,
- Engaging and redeeming of himself
- With such a careless force and forceless care
- As if that luck, in very spite of cunning,
- Bade him win all.
Enter AJAX
- AJAX
- Troilus! thou coward Troilus!
Exit
- DIOMEDES
- Ay, there, there.
- NESTOR
- So, so, we draw together.
Enter ACHILLES
- ACHILLES
- Where is this Hector?
- Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face;
- Know what it is to meet Achilles angry:
- Hector? where's Hector? I will none but Hector.
Exeunt
SCENE VI. Another part of the plains.
Enter AJAX
- AJAX
- Troilus, thou coward Troilus, show thy head!
Enter DIOMEDES
- DIOMEDES
- Troilus, I say! where's Troilus?
- AJAX
- What wouldst thou?
- DIOMEDES
- I would correct him.
- AJAX
- Were I the general, thou shouldst have my office
- Ere that correction. Troilus, I say! what, Troilus!

- DIOMEDES
- Ha, art thou there?
- AJAX
- I'll fight with him alone: stand, Diomed.
- DIOMEDES
- He is my prize; I will not look upon.
- TROILUS
- Come, both you cogging Greeks; have at you both!
Exeunt, fighting
Enter HECTOR
- HECTOR
- Yea, Troilus? O, well fought, my youngest brother!
Enter ACHILLES
- ACHILLES
- Now do I see thee, ha! have at thee, Hector!
- HECTOR
- Pause, if thou wilt.
- ACHILLES
- I do disdain thy courtesy, proud Trojan:
- Be happy that my arms are out of use:
- My rest and negligence befriends thee now,
- But thou anon shalt hear of me again;
- Till when, go seek thy fortune.
Exit
- HECTOR
- Fare thee well:
- I would have been much more a fresher man,
- Had I expected thee. How now, my brother!
Re-enter TROILUS
- TROILUS
- Ajax hath ta'en AEneas: shall it be?
- No, by the flame of yonder glorious heaven,
- He shall not carry him: I'll be ta'en too,
- Or bring him off: fate, hear me what I say!
- I reck not though I end my life to-day.
Exit
Enter one in sumptuous armour
- HECTOR
- Stand, stand, thou Greek; thou art a goodly mark:
- No? wilt thou not? I like thy armour well;
- I'll frush it and unlock the rivets all,
- But I'll be master of it: wilt thou not,
- beast, abide?
- Why, then fly on, I'll hunt thee for thy hide.
Exeunt
SCENE VII. Another part of the plains.
Enter ACHILLES, with Myrmidons
- ACHILLES
- Come here about me, you my Myrmidons;
- Mark what I say.
- Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings eye:
- It is decreed Hector the great must die.
Exeunt
Enter MENELAUS and PARIS, fighting:
then THERSITES
- THERSITES
- The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now,
- bull! now, dog! 'Loo, Paris, 'loo! now my double-
- henned sparrow! 'loo, Paris, 'loo! The bull has the
- game: ware horns, ho!
Exeunt PARIS and MENELAUS
Enter MARGARELON
- MARGARELON
- Turn, slave, and fight.
- THERSITES
- What art thou?

 One bear will
- not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard?

Exit
- MARGARELON
- The devil take thee, coward!
Exit
SCENE VIII. Another part of the plains.
Enter HECTOR
- HECTOR
- Most putrefied core, so fair without,
- Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life.
- Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath:
- Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death.
Puts off his helmet and hangs his shield
behind him
Enter ACHILLES and Myrmidons
- ACHILLES
- Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set;
- How ugly night comes breathing at his heels:
- Even with the vail and darking of the sun,
- To close the day up, Hector's life is done.
- HECTOR
- I am unarm'd; forego this vantage, Greek.
- ACHILLES
- Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek.
- HECTOR falls
- So, Ilion, fall thou next! now, Troy, sink down!
- Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone.

- A retreat sounded
- Hark! a retire upon our Grecian part.
- MYRMIDONS
- The Trojan trumpets sound the like, my lord.
- ACHILLES
- The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth,
- And, stickler-like, the armies separates.
- My half-supp'd sword, that frankly would have fed,
- Pleased with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed.
- Sheathes his sword
- Come, tie his body to my horse's tail;
- Along the field I will the Trojan trail.
Exeunt
SCENE IX. Another part of the plains.
Enter AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NESTOR, DIOMEDES,
and others, marching. Shouts within
- AGAMEMNON
- Hark! hark! what shout is that?
- NESTOR
- Peace, drums!
- Within
- Achilles! Achilles! Hector's slain! Achilles.
- DIOMEDES
- The bruit is, Hector's slain, and by Achilles.
- AJAX
- If it be so, yet bragless let it be;
- Great Hector was a man as good as he.
- AGAMEMNON
- March patiently along: let one be sent
- To pray Achilles see us at our tent.
- If in his death the gods have us befriended,
- Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended.
Exeunt, marching
SCENE X. Another part of the plains.
Enter AENEAS and Trojans
- AENEAS
- Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field:
- Never go home; here starve we out the night.
Enter TROILUS
- TROILUS
- Hector is slain.
- ALL
- Hector! the gods forbid!
- TROILUS
- He's dead; and at the murderer's horse's tail,
- In beastly sort, dragg'd through the shameful field.
- Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed!
- Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy!
- I say, at once let your brief plagues be mercy,
- And linger not our sure destructions on!
- AENEAS
- My lord, you do discomfort all the host!
- TROILUS
- You understand me not that tell me so:
- I do not speak of flight, of fear, of death,
- But dare all imminence that gods and men
- Address their dangers in. Hector is gone:
- Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba?
- Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call'd,
- Go in to Troy, and say there, Hector's dead:
- There is a word will Priam turn to stone;
- Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,
- Cold statues of the youth, and, in a word,
- Scare Troy out of itself. But, march away:
- Hector is dead; there is no more to say.
- Stay yet. You vile abominable tents,
- Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains,
- Let Titan rise as early as he dare,
- I'll through and through you! and, thou great-sized coward,
- No space of earth shall sunder our two hates:
- I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still,
- That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy's thoughts.
- Strike a free march to Troy! with comfort go:
- Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.
Exeunt AENEAS and Trojans
As TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other
side, PANDARUS
- PANDARUS
- But hear you, hear you!
- TROILUS
- Hence, broker-lackey! ignomy and shame
- Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name!
Exit
- PANDARUS
- A goodly medicine for my aching bones! O world!
- world! world! thus is the poor agent despised!
- O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set
- a-work, and how ill requited! why should our
- endeavour be so loved and the performance so loathed?
- what verse for it? what instance for it? Let me see:
- Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing,
- Till he hath lost his honey and his sting;
- And being once subdued in armed tail,
- Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.
- Good traders in the flesh, set this in your
- painted cloths.
- As many as be here of pander's hall,
- Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar's fall;
- Or if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,
- Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.
- Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade,
- Some two months hence my will shall here be made:
- It should be now, but that my fear is this,
- Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss:
- Till then I'll sweat and seek about for eases,
- And at that time bequeathe you my diseases.
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