The History of Troilus and Cressida

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 Dramatis Personae PRIAM, king of Troy. HECTOR TROILUS PARIS DEIPHOBUS HELENUS his sons. MARGARELON, a bastard son of Priam. AENEAS ANTENOR Trojan commanders. CALCHAS, a Trojan priest, taking part with the Greeks. PANDARUS, uncle to Cressida. AGAMEMNON, the Grecian general. MENELAUS, his brother. ACHILLES AJAX ULYSSES NESTOR DIOMEDES PATROCLUS Grecian princes. THERSITES, a deformed and scurrilous Grecian. ALEXANDER, servant to Cressida. Servant to Troilus. Servant to Paris. Servant to Diomedes. HELEN, wife to Menelaus. ANDROMACHE, wife to Hector. CASSANDRA, daughter to Priam, a prophetess. CRESSIDA, daughter to Calchas. Trojan and Greek Soldiers, and Attendants. SCENE Troy, and the Grecian camp before it. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA PROLOGUE In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece The princes orgulous, their high blood chafed, Have to the port of Athens sent their ships, Fraught with the ministers and instruments Of cruel war: sixty and nine, that wore Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen, With wanton Paris sleeps; and that's the quarrel. To Tenedos they come; And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge Their warlike fraughtage: now on Dardan plains The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city, Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien, And Antenorides, with massy staples And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts, Sperr up the sons of Troy. Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits, On one and other side, Trojan and Greek, Sets all on hazard: and hither am I come A prologue arm'd, but not in confidence Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited In like conditions as our argument, To tell you, fair beholders, that our play Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils, Beginning in the middle, starting thence away To what may be digested in a play. Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are: Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war. ACT I SCENE I. Troy. Before Priam's palace. Enter TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS TROILUS Call here my varlet; I'll unarm again: Why should I war without the walls of Troy, That find such cruel battle here within? Each Trojan that is master of his heart, Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none. PANDARUS Will this gear ne'er be mended? TROILUS The Greeks are strong and skilful to their strength, Fierce to their skill and to their fierceness valiant; But I am weaker than a woman's tear, Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance, Less valiant than the virgin in the night And skilless as unpractised infancy. PANDARUS Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part, I'll not meddle nor make no further. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding. TROILUS Have I not tarried? PANDARUS Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting. TROILUS Have I not tarried? PANDARUS Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leavening. TROILUS Still have I tarried. PANDARUS Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word 'hereafter' the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips. TROILUS Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be, Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do. At Priam's royal table do I sit; And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,-- So, traitor! 'When she comes!' When is she thence? PANDARUS Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else. TROILUS I was about to tell thee:--when my heart, As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain, Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, I have, as when the sun doth light a storm, Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile: But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness. PANDARUS An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's-- well, go to--there were no more comparison between the women: but, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her: but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, but-- TROILUS O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,-- When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd, Reply not in how many fathoms deep They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad In Cressid's love: thou answer'st 'she is fair;' Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice, Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand, In whose comparison all whites are ink, Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure The cygnet's down is harsh and spirit of sense Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell'st me, As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her; But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm, Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me The knife that made it. PANDARUS I speak no more than truth. TROILUS Thou dost not speak so much. PANDARUS Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands. TROILUS Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus! PANDARUS I have had my labour for my travail; ill-thought on of her and ill-thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour. TROILUS What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me? PANDARUS Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me. TROILUS Say I she is not fair? PANDARUS I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more i' the matter. TROILUS Pandarus,-- PANDARUS Not I. TROILUS Sweet Pandarus,-- PANDARUS Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. Exit PANDARUS. An alarum TROILUS Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds! Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair, When with your blood you daily paint her thus. I cannot fight upon this argument; It is too starved a subject for my sword. But Pandarus,--O gods, how do you plague me! I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar; And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo. As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit. Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love, What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we? Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl: Between our Ilium and where she resides, Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood, Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar Our doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark. Alarum. Enter AENEAS AENEAS How now, Prince Troilus! wherefore not afield? TROILUS Because not there: this woman's answer sorts, For womanish it is to be from thence. What news, AEneas, from the field to-day? AENEAS That Paris is returned home and hurt. TROILUS By whom, AEneas? AENEAS Troilus, by Menelaus. TROILUS Let Paris bleed; 'tis but a scar to scorn; Paris is gored with Menelaus' horn. Alarum AENEAS Hark, what good sport is out of town to-day! TROILUS Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may.' But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither? AENEAS In all swift haste. TROILUS Come, go we then together. Exeunt SCENE II. The Same. A street. Enter CRESSIDA and ALEXANDER CRESSIDA Who were those went by? ALEXANDER Queen Hecuba and Helen. CRESSIDA And whither go they? ALEXANDER Up to the eastern tower, Whose height commands as subject all the vale, To see the battle. Hector, whose patience Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was moved: He chid Andromache and struck his armourer, And, like as there were husbandry in war, Before the sun rose he was harness'd light, And to the field goes he; where every flower Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw In Hector's wrath. CRESSIDA What was his cause of anger? ALEXANDER The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector; They call him Ajax. CRESSIDA Good; and what of him? ALEXANDER They say he is a very man per se, And stands alone. CRESSIDA So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs. ALEXANDER This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: he hath the joints of every thing, but everything so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight. CRESSIDA But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry? ALEXANDER They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle and struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking. CRESSIDA Who comes here? ALEXANDER Madam, your uncle Pandarus. Enter PANDARUS CRESSIDA Hector's a gallant man. ALEXANDER As may be in the world, lady. PANDARUS What's that? what's that? CRESSIDA Good morrow, uncle Pandarus. PANDARUS Good morrow, cousin Cressid: what do you talk of? Good morrow, Alexander. How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium? CRESSIDA This morning, uncle. PANDARUS What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector armed and gone ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she? CRESSIDA Hector was gone, but Helen was not up. PANDARUS Even so: Hector was stirring early. CRESSIDA That were we talking of, and of his anger. PANDARUS Was he angry? CRESSIDA So he says here. PANDARUS True, he was so: I know the cause too: he'll lay about him to-day, I can tell them that: and there's Troilus will not come far behind him: let them take heed of Troilus, I can tell them that too. CRESSIDA What, is he angry too? PANDARUS Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two. CRESSIDA O Jupiter! there's no comparison. PANDARUS What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man if you see him? CRESSIDA Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him. PANDARUS Well, I say Troilus is Troilus. CRESSIDA Then you say as I say; for, I am sure, he is not Hector. PANDARUS No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees. CRESSIDA 'Tis just to each of them; he is himself. PANDARUS Himself! Alas, poor Troilus! I would he were. CRESSIDA So he is. PANDARUS Condition, I had gone barefoot to India. CRESSIDA He is not Hector. PANDARUS Himself! no, he's not himself: would a' were himself! Well, the gods are above; time must friend or end: well, Troilus, well: I would my heart were in her body. No, Hector is not a better man than Troilus. CRESSIDA Excuse me. PANDARUS He is elder. CRESSIDA Pardon me, pardon me. PANDARUS Th' other's not come to't; you shall tell me another tale, when th' other's come to't. Hector shall not have his wit this year. CRESSIDA He shall not need it, if he have his own. PANDARUS Nor his qualities. CRESSIDA No matter. PANDARUS Nor his beauty. CRESSIDA 'Twould not become him; his own's better. PANDARUS You have no judgment, niece: Helen herself swore th' other day, that Troilus, for a brown favour--for so 'tis, I must confess,-- not brown neither,-- CRESSIDA No, but brown. PANDARUS 'Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown. CRESSIDA To say the truth, true and not true. PANDARUS She praised his complexion above Paris. CRESSIDA Why, Paris hath colour enough. PANDARUS So he has. CRESSIDA Then Troilus should have too much: if she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose. PANDARUS I swear to you. I think Helen loves him better than Paris. CRESSIDA Then she's a merry Greek indeed. PANDARUS Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th' other day into the compassed window,--and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin,-- CRESSIDA Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total. PANDARUS Why, he is very young: and yet will he, within three pound, lift as much as his brother Hector. CRESSIDA Is he so young a man and so old a lifter? PANDARUS But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she came and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin-- CRESSIDA Juno have mercy! how came it cloven? PANDARUS Why, you know 'tis dimpled: I think his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia. CRESSIDA O, he smiles valiantly. PANDARUS Does he not? CRESSIDA O yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn. PANDARUS Why, go to, then: but to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus,-- CRESSIDA Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll prove it so. PANDARUS Troilus! why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg. CRESSIDA If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens i' the shell. PANDARUS I cannot choose but laugh, to think how she tickled his chin: indeed, she has a marvellous white hand, I must needs confess,-- CRESSIDA Without the rack. PANDARUS And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin. CRESSIDA Alas, poor chin! many a wart is richer. PANDARUS But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laughed that her eyes ran o'er. CRESSIDA With mill-stones. PANDARUS And Cassandra laughed. CRESSIDA But there was more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes: did her eyes run o'er too? PANDARUS And Hector laughed. CRESSIDA At what was all this laughing? PANDARUS Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus' chin. CRESSIDA An't had been a green hair, I should have laughed too. PANDARUS They laughed not so much at the hair as at his pretty answer. CRESSIDA What was his answer? PANDARUS Quoth she, 'Here's but two and fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white. CRESSIDA This is her question. PANDARUS That's true; make no question of that. 'Two and fifty hairs' quoth he, 'and one white: that white hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons.' 'Jupiter!' quoth she, 'which of these hairs is Paris, my husband? 'The forked one,' quoth he, 'pluck't out, and give it him.' But there was such laughing! and Helen so blushed, an Paris so chafed, and all the rest so laughed, that it passed. CRESSIDA So let it now; for it has been while going by. PANDARUS Well, cousin. I told you a thing yesterday; think on't. CRESSIDA So I do. PANDARUS I'll be sworn 'tis true; he will weep you, an 'twere a man born in April. CRESSIDA And I'll spring up in his tears, an 'twere a nettle against May. A retreat sounded PANDARUS Hark! they are coming from the field: shall we stand up here, and see them as they pass toward Ilium? good niece, do, sweet niece Cressida. CRESSIDA At your pleasure. PANDARUS Here, here, here's an excellent place; here we may see most bravely: I'll tell you them all by their names as they pass by; but mark Troilus above the rest. CRESSIDA Speak not so loud. AENEAS passes PANDARUS That's AEneas: is not that a brave man? he's one of the flowers of Troy, I can tell you: but mark Troilus; you shall see anon. ANTENOR passes CRESSIDA Who's that? PANDARUS That's Antenor: he has a shrewd wit, I can tell you; and he's a man good enough, he's one o' the soundest judgments in whosoever, and a proper man of person. When comes Troilus? I'll show you Troilus anon: if he see me, you shall see him nod at me. CRESSIDA Will he give you the nod? PANDARUS You shall see. CRESSIDA If he do, the rich shall have more. HECTOR passes PANDARUS That's Hector, that, that, look you, that; there's a fellow! Go thy way, Hector! There's a brave man, niece. O brave Hector! Look how he looks! there's a countenance! is't not a brave man? CRESSIDA O, a brave man! PANDARUS Is a' not? it does a man's heart good. Look you what hacks are on his helmet! look you yonder, do you see? look you there: there's no jesting; there's laying on, take't off who will, as they say: there be hacks! CRESSIDA Be those with swords? PANDARUS Swords! any thing, he cares not; an the devil come to him, it's all one: by God's lid, it does one's heart good. Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris. PARIS passes Look ye yonder, niece; is't not a gallant man too, is't not? Why, this is brave now. Who said he came hurt home to-day? he's not hurt: why, this will do Helen's heart good now, ha! Would I could see Troilus now! You shall see Troilus anon. HELENUS passes CRESSIDA Who's that? PANDARUS That's Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That's Helenus. I think he went not forth to-day. That's Helenus. CRESSIDA Can Helenus fight, uncle? PANDARUS Helenus? no. Yes, he'll fight indifferent well. I marvel where Troilus is. Hark! do you not hear the people cry 'Troilus'? Helenus is a priest. CRESSIDA What sneaking fellow comes yonder? TROILUS passes PANDARUS Where? yonder? that's Deiphobus. 'Tis Troilus! there's a man, niece! Hem! Brave Troilus! the prince of chivalry! CRESSIDA Peace, for shame, peace! PANDARUS Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece: look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hacked than Hector's, and how he looks, and how he goes! O admirable youth! he ne'er saw three and twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way! Had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot. CRESSIDA Here come more. Forces pass PANDARUS Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after meat! I could live and die i' the eyes of Troilus. Ne'er look, ne'er look: the eagles are gone: crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece. CRESSIDA There is among the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus. PANDARUS Achilles! a drayman, a porter, a very camel. CRESSIDA Well, well. PANDARUS 'Well, well!' why, have you any discretion? have you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man? CRESSIDA Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked with no date in the pie, for then the man's date's out. PANDARUS You are such a woman! one knows not at what ward you lie. CRESSIDA Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these: and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand watches. PANDARUS Say one of your watches. CRESSIDA Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the chiefest of them too: if I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it's past watching. PANDARUS You are such another! Enter Troilus's Boy Boy Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you. PANDARUS Where? Boy At your own house; there he unarms him. PANDARUS Good boy, tell him I come. Exit boy I doubt he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece. CRESSIDA Adieu, uncle. PANDARUS I'll be with you, niece, by and by. CRESSIDA To bring, uncle? PANDARUS Ay, a token from Troilus. CRESSIDA By the same token, you are a bawd. Exit PANDARUS Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice, He offers in another's enterprise; But more in Troilus thousand fold I see Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be; Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing: Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing. That she beloved knows nought that knows not this: Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is: That she was never yet that ever knew Love got so sweet as when desire did sue. Therefore this maxim out of love I teach: Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech: Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear, Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear. Exeunt SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before Agamemnon's tent. Sennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, MENELAUS, and others AGAMEMNON Princes, What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks? The ample proposition that hope makes In all designs begun on earth below Fails in the promised largeness: cheques and disasters Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd, As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, Infect the sound pine and divert his grain Tortive and errant from his course of growth. Nor, princes, is it matter new to us That we come short of our suppose so far That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand; Sith every action that hath gone before, Whereof we have record, trial did draw Bias and thwart, not answering the aim, And that unbodied figure of the thought That gave't surmised shape. Why then, you princes, Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works, And call them shames? which are indeed nought else But the protractive trials of great Jove To find persistive constancy in men: The fineness of which metal is not found In fortune's love; for then the bold and coward, The wise and fool, the artist and unread, The hard and soft seem all affined and kin: But, in the wind and tempest of her frown, Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan, Puffing at all, winnows the light away; And what hath mass or matter, by itself Lies rich in virtue and unmingled. NESTOR With due observance of thy godlike seat, Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance Lies the true proof of men: the sea being smooth, How many shallow bauble boats dare sail Upon her patient breast, making their way With those of nobler bulk! But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage The gentle Thetis, and anon behold The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut, Bounding between the two moist elements, Like Perseus' horse: where's then the saucy boat Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now Co-rivall'd greatness? Either to harbour fled, Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so Doth valour's show and valour's worth divide In storms of fortune; for in her ray and brightness The herd hath more annoyance by the breeze Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks, And flies fled under shade, why, then the thing of courage As roused with rage with rage doth sympathize, And with an accent tuned in selfsame key Retorts to chiding fortune. ULYSSES Agamemnon, Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece, Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit. In whom the tempers and the minds of all Should be shut up, hear what Ulysses speaks. Besides the applause and approbation To which, To AGAMEMNON most mighty for thy place and sway, To NESTOR And thou most reverend for thy stretch'd-out life I give to both your speeches, which were such As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece Should hold up high in brass, and such again As venerable Nestor, hatch'd in silver, Should with a bond of air, strong as the axle-tree On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears To his experienced tongue, yet let it please both, Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak. AGAMEMNON Speak, prince of Ithaca; and be't of less expect That matter needless, of importless burden, Divide thy lips, than we are confident, When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws, We shall hear music, wit and oracle. ULYSSES Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down, And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master, But for these instances. The specialty of rule hath been neglected: And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions. When that the general is not like the hive To whom the foragers shall all repair, What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded, The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre Observe degree, priority and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office and custom, in all line of order; And therefore is the glorious planet Sol In noble eminence enthroned and sphered Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil, And posts, like the commandment of a king, Sans cheque to good and bad: but when the planets In evil mixture to disorder wander, What plagues and what portents! what mutiny! What raging of the sea! shaking of earth! Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked, Which is the ladder to all high designs, Then enterprise is sick! How could communities, Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree, stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores And make a sop of all this solid globe: Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead: Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong, Between whose endless jar justice resides, Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then every thing includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey, And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, This chaos, when degree is suffocate, Follows the choking. And this neglection of degree it is That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd By him one step below, he by the next, That next by him beneath; so every step, Exampled by the first pace that is sick Of his superior, grows to an envious fever Of pale and bloodless emulation: And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot, Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length, Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength. NESTOR Most wisely hath Ulysses here discover'd The fever whereof all our power is sick. AGAMEMNON The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses, What is the remedy? ULYSSES The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns The sinew and the forehand of our host, Having his ear full of his airy fame, Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent Lies mocking our designs: with him Patroclus Upon a lazy bed the livelong day Breaks scurril jests; And with ridiculous and awkward action, Which, slanderer, he imitation calls, He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon, Thy topless deputation he puts on, And, like a strutting player, whose conceit Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich To hear the wooden dialogue and sound 'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage,-- Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested seeming He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks, 'Tis like a chime a-mending; with terms unsquared, Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp'd Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff The large Achilles, on his press'd bed lolling, From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause; Cries 'Excellent! 'tis Agamemnon just. Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard, As he being drest to some oration.' That's done, as near as the extremest ends Of parallels, as like as Vulcan and his wife: Yet god Achilles still cries 'Excellent! 'Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus, Arming to answer in a night alarm.' And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age Must be the scene of mirth; to cough and spit, And, with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget, Shake in and out the rivet: and at this sport Sir Valour dies; cries 'O, enough, Patroclus; Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all In pleasure of my spleen.' And in this fashion, All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes, Severals and generals of grace exact, Achievements, plots, orders, preventions, Excitements to the field, or speech for truce, Success or loss, what is or is not, serves As stuff for these two to make paradoxes. NESTOR And in the imitation of these twain-- Who, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns With an imperial voice--many are infect. Ajax is grown self-will'd, and bears his head In such a rein, in full as proud a place As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him; Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war, Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites, A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint, To match us in comparisons with dirt, To weaken and discredit our exposure, How rank soever rounded in with danger. ULYSSES They tax our policy, and call it cowardice, Count wisdom as no member of the war, Forestall prescience, and esteem no act But that of hand: the still and mental parts, That do contrive how many hands shall strike, When fitness calls them on, and know by measure Of their observant toil the enemies' weight,-- Why, this hath not a finger's dignity: They call this bed-work, mappery, closet-war; So that the ram that batters down the wall, For the great swing and rudeness of his poise, They place before his hand that made the engine, Or those that with the fineness of their souls By reason guide his execution. NESTOR Let this be granted, and Achilles' horse Makes many Thetis' sons. A tucket AGAMEMNON What trumpet? look, Menelaus. MENELAUS From Troy. Enter AENEAS AGAMEMNON What would you 'fore our tent? AENEAS Is this great Agamemnon's tent, I pray you? AGAMEMNON Even this. AENEAS May one, that is a herald and a prince, Do a fair message to his kingly ears? AGAMEMNON With surety stronger than Achilles' arm 'Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice Call Agamemnon head and general. AENEAS Fair leave and large security. How may A stranger to those most imperial looks Know them from eyes of other mortals? AGAMEMNON How! AENEAS Ay; I ask, that I might waken reverence, And bid the cheek be ready with a blush Modest as morning when she coldly eyes The youthful Phoebus: Which is that god in office, guiding men? Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon? AGAMEMNON This Trojan scorns us; or the men of Troy Are ceremonious courtiers. AENEAS Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm'd, As bending angels; that's their fame in peace: But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls, Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and, Jove's accord, Nothing so full of heart. But peace, AEneas, Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips! The worthiness of praise distains his worth, If that the praised himself bring the praise forth: But what the repining enemy commends, That breath fame blows; that praise, sole sure, transcends. AGAMEMNON Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself AEneas? AENEAS Ay, Greek, that is my name. AGAMEMNON What's your affair I pray you? AENEAS Sir, pardon; 'tis for Agamemnon's ears. AGAMEMNON He hears naught privately that comes from Troy. AENEAS Nor I from Troy come not to whisper him: I bring a trumpet to awake his ear, To set his sense on the attentive bent, And then to speak. AGAMEMNON Speak frankly as the wind; It is not Agamemnon's sleeping hour: That thou shalt know. Trojan, he is awake, He tells thee so himself. AENEAS Trumpet, blow loud, Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents; And every Greek of mettle, let him know, What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud. Trumpet sounds We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy A prince call'd Hector,--Priam is his father,-- Who in this dull and long-continued truce Is rusty grown: he bade me take a trumpet, And to this purpose speak. Kings, princes, lords! If there be one among the fair'st of Greece That holds his honour higher than his ease, That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril, That knows his valour, and knows not his fear, That loves his mistress more than in confession, With truant vows to her own lips he loves, And dare avow her beauty and her worth In other arms than hers,--to him this challenge. Hector, in view of Trojans and of Greeks, Shall make it good, or do his best to do it, He hath a lady, wiser, fairer, truer, Than ever Greek did compass in his arms, And will to-morrow with his trumpet call Midway between your tents and walls of Troy, To rouse a Grecian that is true in love: If any come, Hector shall honour him; If none, he'll say in Troy when he retires, The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth The splinter of a lance. Even so much. AGAMEMNON This shall be told our lovers, Lord AEneas; If none of them have soul in such a kind, We left them all at home: but we are soldiers; And may that soldier a mere recreant prove, That means not, hath not, or is not in love! If then one is, or hath, or means to be, That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he. NESTOR Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man When Hector's grandsire suck'd: he is old now; But if there be not in our Grecian host One noble man that hath one spark of fire, To answer for his love, tell him from me I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver And in my vantbrace put this wither'd brawn, And meeting him will tell him that my lady Was fairer than his grandam and as chaste As may be in the world: his youth in flood, I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood. AENEAS Now heavens forbid such scarcity of youth! ULYSSES Amen. AGAMEMNON Fair Lord AEneas, let me touch your hand; To our pavilion shall I lead you, sir. Achilles shall have word of this intent; So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent: Yourself shall feast with us before you go And find the welcome of a noble foe. Exeunt all but ULYSSES and NESTOR ULYSSES Nestor! NESTOR What says Ulysses? ULYSSES I have a young conception in my brain; Be you my time to bring it to some shape. NESTOR What is't? ULYSSES This 'tis: Blunt wedges rive hard knots: the seeded pride That hath to this maturity blown up In rank Achilles must or now be cropp'd, Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil, To overbulk us all. NESTOR Well, and how? ULYSSES This challenge that the gallant Hector sends, However it is spread in general name, Relates in purpose only to Achilles. NESTOR The purpose is perspicuous even as substance, Whose grossness little characters sum up: And, in the publication, make no strain, But that Achilles, were his brain as barren As banks of Libya,--though, Apollo knows, 'Tis dry enough,--will, with great speed of judgment, Ay, with celerity, find Hector's purpose Pointing on him. ULYSSES And wake him to the answer, think you? NESTOR Yes, 'tis most meet: whom may you else oppose, That can from Hector bring his honour off, If not Achilles? Though't be a sportful combat, Yet in the trial much opinion dwells; For here the Trojans taste our dear'st repute With their finest palate: and trust to me, Ulysses, Our imputation shall be oddly poised In this wild action; for the success, Although particular, shall give a scantling Of good or bad unto the general; And in such indexes, although small pricks To their subsequent volumes, there is seen The baby figure of the giant mass Of things to come at large. It is supposed He that meets Hector issues from our choice And choice, being mutual act of all our souls, Makes merit her election, and doth boil, As 'twere from us all, a man distill'd Out of our virtues; who miscarrying, What heart receives from hence the conquering part, To steel a strong opinion to themselves? Which entertain'd, limbs are his instruments, In no less working than are swords and bows Directive by the limbs. ULYSSES Give pardon to my speech: Therefore 'tis meet Achilles meet not Hector. Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares, And think, perchance, they'll sell; if not, The lustre of the better yet to show, Shall show the better. Do not consent That ever Hector and Achilles meet; For both our honour and our shame in this Are dogg'd with two strange followers. NESTOR I see them not with my old eyes: what are they? ULYSSES What glory our Achilles shares from Hector, Were he not proud, we all should share with him: But he already is too insolent; And we were better parch in Afric sun Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes, Should he 'scape Hector fair: if he were foil'd, Why then, we did our main opinion crush In taint of our best man. No, make a lottery; And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw The sort to fight with Hector: among ourselves Give him allowance for the better man; For that will physic the great Myrmidon Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall His crest that prouder than blue Iris bends. If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off, We'll dress him up in voices: if he fail, Yet go we under our opinion still That we have better men. But, hit or miss, Our project's life this shape of sense assumes: Ajax employ'd plucks down Achilles' plumes. NESTOR Ulysses, Now I begin to relish thy advice; And I will give a taste of it forthwith To Agamemnon: go we to him straight. Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone Must tarre the mastiffs on, as 'twere their bone. Exeunt ACT II SCENE I. A part of the Grecian camp. Enter AJAX and THERSITES AJAX Thersites! THERSITES Agamemnon, how if he had boils? full, all over, generally? AJAX Thersites! THERSITES And those boils did run? say so: did not the general run then? were not that a botchy core? AJAX Dog! THERSITES Then would come some matter from him; I see none now. AJAX Thou bitch-wolf's son, canst thou not hear? Beating him Feel, then. THERSITES The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord! AJAX Speak then, thou vinewedst leaven, speak: I will beat thee into handsomeness. THERSITES I shall sooner rail thee into wit and holiness: but, I think, thy horse will sooner con an oration than thou learn a prayer without book. Thou canst strike, canst thou? a red murrain o' thy jade's tricks! AJAX Toadstool, learn me the proclamation. THERSITES Dost thou think I have no sense, thou strikest me thus? AJAX The proclamation! THERSITES Thou art proclaimed a fool, I think. AJAX Do not, porpentine, do not: my fingers itch. THERSITES I would thou didst itch from head to foot and I had the scratching of thee; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece. When thou art forth in the incursions, thou strikest as slow as another. AJAX I say, the proclamation! THERSITES Thou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles, and thou art as full of envy at his greatness as Cerberus is at Proserpine's beauty, ay, that thou barkest at him. AJAX Mistress Thersites! THERSITES Thou shouldest strike him. AJAX Cobloaf! THERSITES He would pun thee into shivers with his fist, as a sailor breaks a biscuit. AJAX Beating him You whoreson cur! THERSITES Do, do. AJAX Thou stool for a witch! THERSITES Ay, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows; an assinego may tutor thee: thou scurvy-valiant ass! thou art here but to thrash Trojans; and thou art bought and sold among those of any wit, like a barbarian slave. If thou use to beat me, I will begin at thy heel, and tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no bowels, thou! AJAX You dog! THERSITES You scurvy lord! AJAX Beating him You cur! THERSITES Mars his idiot! do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do. Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS ACHILLES Why, how now, Ajax! wherefore do you thus? How now, Thersites! what's the matter, man? THERSITES You see him there, do you? ACHILLES Ay; what's the matter? THERSITES Nay, look upon him. ACHILLES So I do: what's the matter? THERSITES Nay, but regard him well. ACHILLES 'Well!' why, I do so. THERSITES But yet you look not well upon him; for whosoever you take him to be, he is Ajax. ACHILLES I know that, fool. THERSITES Ay, but that fool knows not himself. AJAX Therefore I beat thee. THERSITES Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! his evasions have ears thus long. I have bobbed his brain more than he has beat my bones: I will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the nineth part of a sparrow. This lord, Achilles, Ajax, who wears his wit in his belly and his guts in his head, I'll tell you what I say of him. ACHILLES What? THERSITES I say, this Ajax-- Ajax offers to beat him ACHILLES Nay, good Ajax. THERSITES Has not so much wit-- ACHILLES Nay, I must hold you. THERSITES As will stop the eye of Helen's needle, for whom he comes to fight. ACHILLES Peace, fool! THERSITES I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not: he there: that he: look you there. AJAX O thou damned cur! I shall-- ACHILLES Will you set your wit to a fool's? THERSITES No, I warrant you; for a fools will shame it. PATROCLUS Good words, Thersites. ACHILLES What's the quarrel? AJAX I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenor of the proclamation, and he rails upon me. THERSITES I serve thee not. AJAX Well, go to, go to. THERSITES I serve here voluntarily. ACHILLES Your last service was sufferance, 'twas not voluntary: no man is beaten voluntary: Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress. THERSITES E'en so; a great deal of your wit, too, lies in your sinews, or else there be liars. Hector have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains: a' were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel. ACHILLES What, with me too, Thersites? THERSITES There's Ulysses and old Nestor, whose wit was mouldy ere your grandsires had nails on their toes, yoke you like draught-oxen and make you plough up the wars. ACHILLES What, what? THERSITES Yes, good sooth: to, Achilles! to, Ajax! to! AJAX I shall cut out your tongue. THERSITES 'Tis no matter! I shall speak as much as thou afterwards. PATROCLUS No more words, Thersites; peace! THERSITES I will hold my peace when Achilles' brach bids me, shall I? ACHILLES There's for you, Patroclus. THERSITES I will see you hanged, like clotpoles, ere I come any more to your tents: I will keep where there is wit stirring and leave the faction of fools. Exit PATROCLUS A good riddance. ACHILLES Marry, this, sir, is proclaim'd through all our host: That Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun, Will with a trumpet 'twixt our tents and Troy To-morrow morning call some knight to arms That hath a stomach; and such a one that dare Maintain--I know not what: 'tis trash. Farewell. AJAX Farewell. Who shall answer him? ACHILLES I know not: 'tis put to lottery; otherwise He knew his man. AJAX O, meaning you. I will go learn more of it. Exeunt SCENE II. Troy. A room in Priam's palace. Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and HELENUS PRIAM After so many hours, lives, speeches spent, Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks: 'Deliver Helen, and all damage else-- As honour, loss of time, travail, expense, Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumed In hot digestion of this cormorant war-- Shall be struck off.' Hector, what say you to't? HECTOR Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I As far as toucheth my particular, Yet, dread Priam, There is no lady of more softer bowels, More spongy to suck in the sense of fear, More ready to cry out 'Who knows what follows?' Than Hector is: the wound of peace is surety, Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches To the bottom of the worst. Let Helen go: Since the first sword was drawn about this question, Every tithe soul, 'mongst many thousand dismes, Hath been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours: If we have lost so many tenths of ours, To guard a thing not ours nor worth to us, Had it our name, the value of one ten, What merit's in that reason which denies The yielding of her up? TROILUS Fie, fie, my brother! Weigh you the worth and honour of a king So great as our dread father in a scale Of common ounces? will you with counters sum The past proportion of his infinite? And buckle in a waist most fathomless With spans and inches so diminutive As fears and reasons? fie, for godly shame! HELENUS No marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons, You are so empty of them. Should not our father Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons, Because your speech hath none that tells him so? TROILUS You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest; You fur your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons: You know an enemy intends you harm; You know a sword employ'd is perilous, And reason flies the object of all harm: Who marvels then, when Helenus beholds A Grecian and his sword, if he do set The very wings of reason to his heels And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove, Or like a star disorb'd? Nay, if we talk of reason, Let's shut our gates and sleep: manhood and honour Should have hare-hearts, would they but fat their thoughts With this cramm'd reason: reason and respect Make livers pale and lustihood deject. HECTOR Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost The holding. TROILUS What is aught, but as 'tis valued? HECTOR But value dwells not in particular will; It holds his estimate and dignity As well wherein 'tis precious of itself As in the prizer: 'tis mad idolatry To make the service greater than the god And the will dotes that is attributive To what infectiously itself affects, Without some image of the affected merit. TROILUS I take to-day a wife, and my election Is led on in the conduct of my will; My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears, Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores Of will and judgment: how may I avoid, Although my will distaste what it elected, The wife I chose? there can be no evasion To blench from this and to stand firm by honour: We turn not back the silks upon the merchant, When we have soil'd them, nor the remainder viands We do not throw in unrespective sieve, Because we now are full. It was thought meet Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks: Your breath of full consent bellied his sails; The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce And did him service: he touch'd the ports desired, And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive, He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes stale the morning. Why keep we her? the Grecians keep our aunt: Is she worth keeping? why, she is a pearl, Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships, And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants. If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went-- As you must needs, for you all cried 'Go, go,'-- If you'll confess he brought home noble prize-- As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands And cried 'Inestimable!'--why do you now The issue of your proper wisdoms rate, And do a deed that fortune never did, Beggar the estimation which you prized Richer than sea and land? O, theft most base, That we have stol'n what we do fear to keep! But, thieves, unworthy of a thing so stol'n, That in their country did them that disgrace, We fear to warrant in our native place! CASSANDRA Within Cry, Trojans, cry! PRIAM What noise? what shriek is this? TROILUS 'Tis our mad sister, I do know her voice. CASSANDRA Within Cry, Trojans! HECTOR It is Cassandra. Enter CASSANDRA, raving CASSANDRA Cry, Trojans, cry! lend me ten thousand eyes, And I will fill them with prophetic tears. HECTOR Peace, sister, peace! CASSANDRA Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld, Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry, Add to my clamours! let us pay betimes A moiety of that mass of moan to come. Cry, Trojans, cry! practise your eyes with tears! Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand; Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all. Cry, Trojans, cry! a Helen and a woe: Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go. Exit HECTOR Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains Of divination in our sister work Some touches of remorse? or is your blood So madly hot that no discourse of reason, Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause, Can qualify the same? TROILUS Why, brother Hector, We may not think the justness of each act Such and no other than event doth form it, Nor once deject the courage of our minds, Because Cassandra's mad: her brain-sick raptures Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel Which hath our several honours all engaged To make it gracious. For my private part, I am no more touch'd than all Priam's sons: And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us Such things as might offend the weakest spleen To fight for and maintain! PARIS Else might the world convince of levity As well my undertakings as your counsels: But I attest the gods, your full consent Gave wings to my propension and cut off All fears attending on so dire a project. For what, alas, can these my single arms? What Propugnation is in one man's valour, To stand the push and enmity of those This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest, Were I alone to pass the difficulties And had as ample power as I have will, Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done, Nor faint in the pursuit. PRIAM Paris, you speak Like one besotted on your sweet delights: You have the honey still, but these the gall; So to be valiant is no praise at all. PARIS Sir, I propose not merely to myself The pleasures such a beauty brings with it; But I would have the soil of her fair rape Wiped off, in honourable keeping her. What treason were it to the ransack'd queen, Disgrace to your great worths and shame to me, Now to deliver her possession up On terms of base compulsion! Can it be That so degenerate a strain as this Should once set footing in your generous bosoms? There's not the meanest spirit on our party Without a heart to dare or sword to draw When Helen is defended, nor none so noble Whose life were ill bestow'd or death unfamed Where Helen is the subject; then, I say, Well may we fight for her whom, we know well, The world's large spaces cannot parallel. HECTOR Paris and Troilus, you have both said well, And on the cause and question now in hand Have glozed, but superficially: not much Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought Unfit to hear moral philosophy: The reasons you allege do more conduce To the hot passion of distemper'd blood Than to make up a free determination 'Twixt right and wrong, for pleasure and revenge Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice Of any true decision. Nature craves All dues be render'd to their owners: now, What nearer debt in all humanity Than wife is to the husband? If this law Of nature be corrupted through affection, And that great minds, of partial indulgence To their benumbed wills, resist the same, There is a law in each well-order'd nation To curb those raging appetites that are Most disobedient and refractory. If Helen then be wife to Sparta's king, As it is known she is, these moral laws Of nature and of nations speak aloud To have her back return'd: thus to persist In doing wrong extenuates not wrong, But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion Is this in way of truth; yet ne'ertheless, My spritely brethren, I propend to you In resolution to keep Helen still, For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependance Upon our joint and several dignities. TROILUS Why, there you touch'd the life of our design: Were it not glory that we more affected Than the performance of our heaving spleens, I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector, She is a theme of honour and renown, A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds, Whose present courage may beat down our foes, And fame in time to come canonize us; For, I presume, brave Hector would not lose So rich advantage of a promised glory As smiles upon the forehead of this action For the wide world's revenue. HECTOR I am yours, You valiant offspring of great Priamus. I have a roisting challenge sent amongst The dun and factious nobles of the Greeks Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits: I was advertised their great general slept, Whilst emulation in the army crept: This, I presume, will wake him. Exeunt SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent. Enter THERSITES, solus THERSITES How now, Thersites! what lost in the labyrinth of thy fury! Shall the elephant Ajax carry it thus? He beats me, and I rail at him: O, worthy satisfaction! would it were otherwise; that I could beat him, whilst he railed at me. 'Sfoot, I'll learn to conjure and raise devils, but I'll see some issue of my spiteful execrations. Then there's Achilles, a rare enginer! If Troy be not taken till these two undermine it, the walls will stand till they fall of themselves. O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus, if ye take not that little, little less than little wit from them that they have! which short-armed ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce, it will not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider, without drawing their massy irons and cutting the web. After this, the vengeance on the whole camp! or rather, the bone-ache! for that, methinks, is the curse dependent on those that war for a placket. I have said my prayers and devil Envy say Amen. What ho! my Lord Achilles! Enter PATROCLUS PATROCLUS Who's there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail. THERSITES If I could have remembered a gilt counterfeit, thou wouldst not have slipped out of my contemplation: but it is no matter; thyself upon thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue! heaven bless thee from a tutor, and discipline come not near thee! Let thy blood be thy direction till thy death! then if she that lays thee out says thou art a fair corse, I'll be sworn and sworn upon't she never shrouded any but lazars. Amen. Where's Achilles? PATROCLUS What, art thou devout? wast thou in prayer? THERSITES Ay: the heavens hear me! Enter ACHILLES ACHILLES Who's there? PATROCLUS Thersites, my lord. ACHILLES Where, where? Art thou come? why, my cheese, my digestion, why hast thou not served thyself in to my table so many meals? Come, what's Agamemnon? THERSITES Thy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what's Achilles? PATROCLUS Thy lord, Thersites: then tell me, I pray thee, what's thyself? THERSITES Thy knower, Patroclus: then tell me, Patroclus, what art thou? PATROCLUS Thou mayst tell that knowest. ACHILLES O, tell, tell. THERSITES I'll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands Achilles; Achilles is my lord; I am Patroclus' knower, and Patroclus is a fool. PATROCLUS You rascal! THERSITES Peace, fool! I have not done. ACHILLES He is a privileged man. Proceed, Thersites. THERSITES Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a fool, and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool. ACHILLES Derive this; come. THERSITES Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool, and Patroclus is a fool positive. PATROCLUS Why am I a fool? THERSITES Make that demand of the prover. It suffices me thou art. Look you, who comes here? ACHILLES Patroclus, I'll speak with nobody. Come in with me, Thersites. Exit THERSITES Here is such patchery, such juggling and such knavery! all the argument is a cuckold and a whore; a good quarrel to draw emulous factions and bleed to death upon. Now, the dry serpigo on the subject! and war and lechery confound all! Exit Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, and AJAX AGAMEMNON Where is Achilles? PATROCLUS Within his tent; but ill disposed, my lord. AGAMEMNON Let it be known to him that we are here. He shent our messengers; and we lay by Our appertainments, visiting of him: Let him be told so; lest perchance he think We dare not move the question of our place, Or know not what we are. PATROCLUS I shall say so to him. Exit ULYSSES We saw him at the opening of his tent: He is not sick. AJAX Yes, lion-sick, sick of proud heart: you may call it melancholy, if you will favour the man; but, by my head, 'tis pride: but why, why? let him show us the cause. A word, my lord. Takes AGAMEMNON aside NESTOR What moves Ajax thus to bay at him? ULYSSES Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him. NESTOR Who, Thersites? ULYSSES He. NESTOR Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument. ULYSSES No, you see, he is his argument that has his argument, Achilles. NESTOR All the better; their fraction is more our wish than their faction: but it was a strong composure a fool could disunite. ULYSSES The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie. Here comes Patroclus. Re-enter PATROCLUS NESTOR No Achilles with him. ULYSSES The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure. PATROCLUS Achilles bids me say, he is much sorry, If any thing more than your sport and pleasure Did move your greatness and this noble state To call upon him; he hopes it is no other But for your health and your digestion sake, And after-dinner's breath. AGAMEMNON Hear you, Patroclus: We are too well acquainted with these answers: But his evasion, wing'd thus swift with scorn, Cannot outfly our apprehensions. Much attribute he hath, and much the reason Why we ascribe it to him; yet all his virtues, Not virtuously on his own part beheld, Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss, Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish, Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him, We come to speak with him; and you shall not sin, If you do say we think him over-proud And under-honest, in self-assumption greater Than in the note of judgment; and worthier than himself Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on, Disguise the holy strength of their command, And underwrite in an observing kind His humorous predominance; yea, watch His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if The passage and whole carriage of this action Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and add, That if he overhold his price so much, We'll none of him; but let him, like an engine Not portable, lie under this report: 'Bring action hither, this cannot go to war: A stirring dwarf we do allowance give Before a sleeping giant.' Tell him so. PATROCLUS I shall; and bring his answer presently. Exit AGAMEMNON In second voice we'll not be satisfied; We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you. Exit ULYSSES AJAX What is he more than another? AGAMEMNON No more than what he thinks he is. AJAX Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better man than I am? AGAMEMNON No question. AJAX Will you subscribe his thought, and say he is? AGAMEMNON No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether more tractable. AJAX Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not what pride is. AGAMEMNON Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the fairer. He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise. AJAX I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering of toads. NESTOR Yet he loves himself: is't not strange? Aside Re-enter ULYSSES ULYSSES Achilles will not to the field to-morrow. AGAMEMNON What's his excuse? ULYSSES He doth rely on none, But carries on the stream of his dispose Without observance or respect of any, In will peculiar and in self-admission. AGAMEMNON Why will he not upon our fair request Untent his person and share the air with us? ULYSSES Things small as nothing, for request's sake only, He makes important: possess'd he is with greatness, And speaks not to himself but with a pride That quarrels at self-breath: imagined worth Holds in his blood such swoln and hot discourse That 'twixt his mental and his active parts Kingdom'd Achilles in commotion rages And batters down himself: what should I say? He is so plaguy proud that the death-tokens of it Cry 'No recovery.' AGAMEMNON Let Ajax go to him. Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent: 'Tis said he holds you well, and will be led At your request a little from himself. ULYSSES O Agamemnon, let it not be so! We'll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes When they go from Achilles: shall the proud lord That bastes his arrogance with his own seam And never suffers matter of the world Enter his thoughts, save such as do revolve And ruminate himself, shall he be worshipp'd Of that we hold an idol more than he? No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord Must not so stale his palm, nobly acquired; Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit, As amply titled as Achilles is, By going to Achilles: That were to enlard his fat already pride And add more coals to Cancer when he burns With entertaining great Hyperion. This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid, And say in thunder 'Achilles go to him.' NESTOR Aside to DIOMEDES O, this is well; he rubs the vein of him. DIOMEDES Aside to NESTOR And how his silence drinks up this applause! AJAX If I go to him, with my armed fist I'll pash him o'er the face. AGAMEMNON O, no, you shall not go. AJAX An a' be proud with me, I'll pheeze his pride: Let me go to him. ULYSSES Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel. AJAX A paltry, insolent fellow! NESTOR How he describes himself! AJAX Can he not be sociable? ULYSSES The raven chides blackness. AJAX I'll let his humours blood. AGAMEMNON He will be the physician that should be the patient. AJAX An all men were o' my mind,-- ULYSSES Wit would be out of fashion. AJAX A' should not bear it so, a' should eat swords first: shall pride carry it? NESTOR An 'twould, you'ld carry half. ULYSSES A' would have ten shares. AJAX I will knead him; I'll make him supple. NESTOR He's not yet through warm: force him with praises: pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry. ULYSSES To AGAMEMNON My lord, you feed too much on this dislike. NESTOR Our noble general, do not do so. DIOMEDES You must prepare to fight without Achilles. ULYSSES Why, 'tis this naming of him does him harm. Here is a man--but 'tis before his face; I will be silent. NESTOR Wherefore should you so? He is not emulous, as Achilles is. ULYSSES Know the whole world, he is as valiant. AJAX A whoreson dog, that shall pelter thus with us! Would he were a Trojan! NESTOR What a vice were it in Ajax now,-- ULYSSES If he were proud,-- DIOMEDES Or covetous of praise,-- ULYSSES Ay, or surly borne,-- DIOMEDES Or strange, or self-affected! ULYSSES Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure; Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck: Famed be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature Thrice famed, beyond all erudition: But he that disciplined thy arms to fight, Let Mars divide eternity in twain, And give him half: and, for thy vigour, Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom, Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines Thy spacious and dilated parts: here's Nestor; Instructed by the antiquary times, He must, he is, he cannot but be wise: Put pardon, father Nestor, were your days As green as Ajax' and your brain so temper'd, You should not have the eminence of him, But be as Ajax. AJAX Shall I call you father? NESTOR Ay, my good son. DIOMEDES Be ruled by him, Lord Ajax. ULYSSES There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles Keeps thicket. Please it our great general To call together all his state of war; Fresh kings are come to Troy: to-morrow We must with all our main of power stand fast: And here's a lord,--come knights from east to west, And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best. AGAMEMNON Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep: Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep. Exeunt ACT III SCENE I. Troy. Priam's palace. Enter a Servant and PANDARUS PANDARUS Friend, you! pray you, a word: do not you follow the young Lord Paris? Servant Ay, sir, when he goes before me. PANDARUS You depend upon him, I mean? Servant Sir, I do depend upon the lord. PANDARUS You depend upon a noble gentleman; I must needs praise him. Servant The lord be praised! PANDARUS You know me, do you not? Servant Faith, sir, superficially. PANDARUS Friend, know me better; I am the Lord Pandarus. Servant I hope I shall know your honour better. PANDARUS I do desire it. Servant You are in the state of grace. PANDARUS Grace! not so, friend: honour and lordship are my titles. Music within What music is this? Servant I do but partly know, sir: it is music in parts. PANDARUS Know you the musicians? Servant Wholly, sir. PANDARUS Who play they to? Servant To the hearers, sir. PANDARUS At whose pleasure, friend Servant At mine, sir, and theirs that love music. PANDARUS Command, I mean, friend. Servant Who shall I command, sir? PANDARUS Friend, we understand not one another: I am too courtly and thou art too cunning. At whose request do these men play? Servant That's to 't indeed, sir: marry, sir, at the request of Paris my lord, who's there in person; with him, the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of beauty, love's invisible soul,-- PANDARUS Who, my cousin Cressida? Servant No, sir, Helen: could you not find out that by her attributes? PANDARUS It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the Lady Cressida. I come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troilus: I will make a complimental assault upon him, for my business seethes. Servant Sodden business! there's a stewed phrase indeed! Enter PARIS and HELEN, attended PANDARUS Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company! fair desires, in all fair measure, fairly guide them! especially to you, fair queen! fair thoughts be your fair pillow! HELEN Dear lord, you are full of fair words. PANDARUS You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen. Fair prince, here is good broken music. PARIS You have broke it, cousin: and, by my life, you shall make it whole again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your performance. Nell, he is full of harmony. PANDARUS Truly, lady, no. HELEN O, sir,-- PANDARUS Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude. PARIS Well said, my lord! well, you say so in fits. PANDARUS I have business to my lord, dear queen. My lord, will you vouchsafe me a word? HELEN Nay, this shall not hedge us out: we'll hear you sing, certainly. PANDARUS Well, sweet queen. you are pleasant with me. But, marry, thus, my lord: my dear lord and most esteemed friend, your brother Troilus,-- HELEN My Lord Pandarus; honey-sweet lord,-- PANDARUS Go to, sweet queen, to go:--commends himself most affectionately to you,-- HELEN You shall not bob us out of our melody: if you do, our melancholy upon your head! PANDARUS Sweet queen, sweet queen! that's a sweet queen, i' faith. HELEN And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence. PANDARUS Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall not, in truth, la. Nay, I care not for such words; no, no. And, my lord, he desires you, that if the king call for him at supper, you will make his excuse. HELEN My Lord Pandarus,-- PANDARUS What says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen? PARIS What exploit's in hand? where sups he to-night? HELEN Nay, but, my lord,-- PANDARUS What says my sweet queen? My cousin will fall out with you. You must not know where he sups. PARIS I'll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida. PANDARUS No, no, no such matter; you are wide: come, your disposer is sick. PARIS Well, I'll make excuse. PANDARUS Ay, good my lord. Why should you say Cressida? no, your poor disposer's sick. PARIS I spy. PANDARUS You spy! what do you spy? Come, give me an instrument. Now, sweet queen. HELEN Why, this is kindly done. PANDARUS My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet queen. HELEN She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my lord Paris. PANDARUS He! no, she'll none of him; they two are twain. HELEN Falling in, after falling out, may make them three. PANDARUS Come, come, I'll hear no more of this; I'll sing you a song now. HELEN Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead. PANDARUS Ay, you may, you may. HELEN Let thy song be love: this love will undo us all. O Cupid, Cupid, Cupid! PANDARUS Love! ay, that it shall, i' faith. PARIS Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love. PANDARUS In good troth, it begins so. Sings Love, love, nothing but love, still more! For, O, love's bow Shoots buck and doe: The shaft confounds, Not that it wounds, But tickles still the sore. These lovers cry Oh! oh! they die! Yet that which seems the wound to kill, Doth turn oh! oh! to ha! ha! he! So dying love lives still: Oh! oh! a while, but ha! ha! ha! Oh! oh! groans out for ha! ha! ha! Heigh-ho! HELEN In love, i' faith, to the very tip of the nose. PARIS He eats nothing but doves, love, and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love. PANDARUS Is this the generation of love? hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers: is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who's 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! TROILUS Sirrah, walk off. Exit Boy PANDARUS Have you seen my cousin? TROILUS No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door, Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon, And give me swift transportance to those fields Where I may wallow in the lily-beds Proposed for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus, From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings And fly with me to Cressid! PANDARUS Walk here i' the orchard, I'll bring her straight. Exit TROILUS I am giddy; expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense: what will it be, When that the watery palate tastes indeed Love's thrice repured nectar? death, I fear me, Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine, Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness, For the capacity of my ruder powers: I fear it much; and I do fear besides, That I shall lose distinction in my joys; As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps The enemy flying. 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? Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward, we'll put you i' the fills. Why do you not speak to her? Come, draw this curtain, and let's see your picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! an 'twere dark, you'ld close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. How now! a kiss in fee-farm! build there, carpenter; the air is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i' the river: go to, go to. TROILUS You have bereft me of all words, lady. PANDARUS Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she'll bereave you o' the deeds too, if she call your activity in question. What, billing again? Here's 'In witness whereof the parties interchangeably'-- Come in, come in: I'll go get a fire. Exit CRESSIDA Will you walk in, my lord? TROILUS O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus! CRESSIDA Wished, my lord! The gods grant,--O my lord! TROILUS What should they grant? what makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love? CRESSIDA More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes. TROILUS Fears make devils of 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: