Script of Act III Troilus and Cressida
The play by William Shakespeare Introduction
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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:
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 some men creep in skittish fortune's hall,
Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another's pride,
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords!--why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,
As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast
And great Troy shrieking.
ACHILLES
I do believe it; for they 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.
Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS
THERSITES
Would the fountain of your mind were clear again,
that I might water an ass at it! I had rather be a
tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance.
Exit Script of Act III Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare Personae |
