The History of Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare (most read books of all time .TXT) 📖

Diomed,
Stand fast and wear a castle on thy head.

ULYSSES.
I'll bring you to the gates.

TROILUS.
Accept distracted thanks.

[Exeunt TROILUS, AENEAS. and ULYSSES.]

THERSITES.
Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like
a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me
anything for the intelligence of this whore; the parrot will not
do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery,
lechery! Still wars and lechery! Nothing else holds fashion. A
burning devil take them!

[Exit.]


ACT V.

SCENE 3. Troy. Before PRIAM'S palace

[Enter HECTOR and ANDROMACHE.]

ANDROMACHE.
When was my lord so much ungently temper'd
To stop his ears against admonishment?
Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day.

HECTOR.
You train me to offend you; get you in.
By all the everlasting gods, I'll go.

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

HECTOR.
No more, I say.

[Enter CASSANDRA.]

CASSANDRA.
Where is my brother Hector?

ANDROMACHE.
Here, sister, arm'd, and bloody in intent.
Consort with me in loud and dear petition,
Pursue we him on knees; for I have dreamt
Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night
Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.

CASSANDRA.
O, 'tis true!

HECTOR.
Ho! bid my trumpet sound.

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

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

CASSANDRA.
The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows;
They are polluted off'rings, more abhorr'd
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.

ANDROMACHE.
O, be persuaded! Do not count it holy
To hurt by being just. It is as lawful,
For we would give much, to use violent thefts
And rob in the behalf of charity.

CASSANDRA.
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow;
But vows to every purpose must not hold.
Unarm, sweet Hector.

HECTOR.
Hold you still, I say.
Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate.
Life every man holds dear; but the dear man
Holds honour far more precious dear than life.

[Enter TROILUS.]

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

ANDROMACHE.
Cassandra, call my father to persuade.

[Exit CASSANDRA.]

HECTOR.
No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth;
I am to-day i' the vein of chivalry.
Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong,
And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.
Unarm thee, go; and doubt thou not, brave boy,
I'll stand to-day for thee and me and Troy.

TROILUS.
Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you
Which better fits a lion than a man.

HECTOR.
What vice is that, good Troilus?
Chide me for it.

TROILUS.
When many times the captive Grecian falls,
Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
You bid them rise and live.

HECTOR.
O, 'tis fair play!

TROILUS.
Fool's play, by heaven, Hector.

HECTOR.
How now! how now!

TROILUS.
For th' love of all the gods,
Let's leave the hermit Pity with our mothers;
And when we have our armours buckled on,
The venom'd vengeance ride upon our swords,
Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth!

HECTOR.
Fie, savage, fie!

TROILUS.
Hector, then 'tis wars.

HECTOR.
Troilus, I would not have you fight to-day.

TROILUS.
Who should withhold me?
Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars
Beckoning with fiery truncheon my retire;
Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,
Their eyes o'ergalled with recourse of tears;
Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,
Oppos'd to hinder me, should stop my way,
But by my ruin.

[Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM.]

CASSANDRA.
Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast;
He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay,
Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,
Fall all together.

PRIAM.
Come, Hector, come, go back.
Thy wife hath dreamt; thy mother hath had visions;
Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself
Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt
To tell thee that this day is ominous.
Therefore, come back.

HECTOR.
Aeneas is a-field;
And I do stand engag'd to many Greeks,
Even in the faith of valour, to appear
This morning to them.

PRIAM.
Ay, but thou shalt not go.

HECTOR.
I must not break my faith.
You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir,
Let me not shame respect; but give me leave
To take that course by your consent and voice
Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.

CASSANDRA.
O Priam, yield not to him!

ANDROMACHE.
Do not, dear father.

HECTOR.
Andromache, I am offended with you.
Upon the love you bear me, get you in.

[Exit ANDROMACHE.]

TROILUS.
This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl
Makes all these bodements.

CASSANDRA.
O, farewell, dear Hector!
Look how thou diest. Look how thy eye turns pale.
Look how thy wounds do bleed at many vents.
Hark how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out;
How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth;
Behold distraction, frenzy, and amazement,
Like witless antics, one another meet,
And all cry, Hector! Hector's dead! O Hector!

TROILUS.
Away, away!

CASSANDRA.
Farewell! yet, soft! Hector, I take my leave.
Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.

[Exit.]

HECTOR.
You are amaz'd, my liege, at her exclaim.
Go in, and cheer the town; we'll forth, and fight,
Do deeds worth praise and tell you them at night.

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

[Exeunt severally PRIAM and HECTOR. Alarums.]

TROILUS.
They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe,
I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.

[Enter PANDARUS.]

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

TROILUS.
What now?

PANDARUS.
Here's a letter come from yond poor girl.

TROILUS.
Let me read.

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

TROILUS.
Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart;
Th' effect doth operate another way.

[Tearing the letter.]

Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together.
My love with words and errors still she feeds,
But edifies another with her deeds.

[Exeunt severally.]


ACT V.

SCENE 4. The plain between Troy and the Grecian camp

[Alarums. Excursions. Enter THERSITES.]

THERSITES.
Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look
on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same
scurvy doting foolish young knave's sleeve of Troy there in his
helm. I would fain see them meet, that that same young Trojan ass
that loves the whore there might send that Greekish whoremasterly
villain with the sleeve back to the dissembling luxurious drab of
a sleeve-less errand. O' the other side, the policy of those
crafty swearing rascals that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese,
Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Ulysses, is not prov'd worth a
blackberry. They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax,
against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles; and now is the cur,
Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to-day;
whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy
grows into an ill opinion.

[Enter DIOMEDES, TROILUS following.]

Soft! here comes sleeve, and t'other.

TROILUS.
Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river Styx
I would swim after.

DIOMEDES.
Thou dost miscall retire.
I do not fly; but advantageous care
Withdrew me from the odds of multitude.
Have at thee.

THERSITES.
Hold thy whore, Grecian; now for thy whore,
Trojan! now the sleeve, now the sleeve!

[Exeunt TROILUS and DIOMEDES fighting.]

[Enter HECTOR.]

HECTOR.
What art thou, Greek? Art thou for Hector's match?
Art thou of blood and honour?

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

HECTOR.
I do believe thee. Live.

[Exit.]

THERSITES.
God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague
break thy neck for frighting me! What's become of the wenching
rogues? I think they have swallowed one another. I would laugh at
that miracle. Yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself. I'll seek
them.

[Exit.]


ACT V.

SCENE 5. Another part of the plain

[Enter DIOMEDES and A SERVANT.]

DIOMEDES.
Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus' horse;
Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid.
Fellow, commend my service to her beauty;
Tell her I have chastis'd the amorous Trojan,
And am her knight by proof.

SERVANT.
I go, my lord.

[Exit.]

[Enter AGAMEMNON.]

AGAMEMNON.
Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamus
Hath beat down Menon; bastard Margarelon
Hath Doreus prisoner,
And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam,
Upon the pashed corses of the kings
Epistrophus and Cedius. Polixenes is slain;
Amphimacus and Thoas deadly hurt;
Patroclus ta'en, or slain; and Palamedes
Sore hurt and bruis'd. The dreadful Sagittary
Appals our numbers. Haste we, Diomed,
To reinforcement, or we perish all.

[Enter NESTOR.]

NESTOR.
Go, bear Patroclus' body to Achilles,
And bid the snail-pac'd Ajax arm for shame.
There is a thousand Hectors in the field;
Now here he fights on Galathe his horse,
And there lacks work; anon he's there afoot,
And there they fly or die, like scaled sculls
Before the belching whale; then is he yonder,
And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge,
Fall down before him like the mower's swath.
Here, there, and everywhere, he leaves and takes;
Dexterity so obeying appetite
That what he will he does, and does so much
That proof is call'd impossibility.

[Enter ULYSSES.]

ULYSSES.
O, courage, courage, courage, Princes! Great
Achilles is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance.
Patroclus' wounds have rous'd his drowsy blood,
Together with his mangled Myrmidons,
That noseless, handless, hack'd and chipp'd, come to
him, Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend
And foams at mouth, and he is arm'd and at it,
Roaring for Troilus; who hath done to-day
Mad and fantastic execution,
Engaging and redeeming of himself
With such a careless force and forceless care
As if that luck, in very spite of cunning,
Bade him win all.

[Enter AJAX.]

AJAX.
Troilus! thou coward Troilus!

[Exit.]

DIOMEDES.
Ay, there, there.

NESTOR.
So, so, we draw together.

[Exit.]

[Enter ACHILLES.]

ACHILLES.
Where is this Hector?
Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face;
Know what it is to meet Achilles angry.
Hector! where's Hector? I will none but Hector.

[Exeunt.]


ACT V.

SCENE 6. Another part of the plain

[Enter AJAX.]

AJAX.
Troilus, thou coward Troilus, show thy head.

[Enter DIOMEDES.]

DIOMEDES.
Troilus, I say! Where's Troilus?

AJAX.
What wouldst thou?

DIOMEDES.
I would correct him.

AJAX.
Were I the general, thou shouldst have my office
Ere that correction. Troilus, I say! What, Troilus!

[Enter TROILUS.]

TROILUS.
O traitor Diomed! Turn thy false face, thou traitor,
And pay thy life thou owest me for my horse.

DIOMEDES.
Ha! art thou there?

AJAX.
I'll fight with him alone. Stand, Diomed.

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

TROILUS.
Come, both, you cogging Greeks; have at you -

[Exeunt fighting.]

[Enter HECTOR.]

HECTOR.
Yea, Troilus? O, well fought, my youngest brother!

[Enter ACHILLES.]

ACHILLES.
Now