| [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] |
| [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] |
| [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] |