The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare (book suggestions TXT) 📖

it him.’ But there was such laughing! and Helen so blush’d, and Paris so chaf’d; and all the rest so laugh’d that it pass’d.

CRESSIDA. So let it now; for it has been a great 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, and ‘twere a man born in April.

CRESSIDA. And I’ll spring up in his tears, an ‘twere a nettle against May. [Sound a retreat]

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.

 

AENEAS passes

 

CRESSIDA. Speak not so loud.

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’ th’ soundest judgments in Troy, 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! anything, 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 hack’d than Hector’s; and how he looks, and how he goes! O

admirable youth! he never 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 comes more.

 

Common soldiers pass

 

PANDARUS. Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran!

porridge after meat! I could live and die in 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 amongst 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 minc’d man; and then to be bak’d with no date in the pie, for then the man’s date is out.

PANDARUS. You are such a woman! A man 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, 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’ 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 will 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 belov’d 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. Exit

ACT I. SCENE 3.

The Grecian camp. Before AGAMEMNON’S tent Sennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, MENELAUS, and others AGAMEMNON. Princes,

What grief hath set these jaundies o’er your cheeks?

The ample proposition that hope makes In all designs begun on earth below

Fails in the promis’d largeness; checks and disasters Grow in the veins of actions highest rear’d, As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, Infects the sound pine, and diverts 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 affin’d 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 rous’d with rage, with rage doth sympathise, And with an accent tun’d 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

The 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 axletree On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears To his experienc’d 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, Th’ 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 enthron’d and spher’d Amidst the other, whose med’cinable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil, And posts, like the commandment of a king, Sans check, 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 fixture! O, when degree is shak’d, Which is the ladder of all high designs, The enterprise is sick! How could communities, Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogenity 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 melts 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 everything includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite;

And appetite, an universal wolf,

So doubly seconded with will and power,