Achil. I am Achilles.
Hect. Stand fair, I pray thee: let me look on thee.
Achil. Behold thy fill.

Hect.
Nay, I have done already.
Achil. Thou art to brief; I will the second
time,

As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.

Hect. O, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er ;
But there's more in me, than thou understand'st
Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?
Achil. Tell me, you heavens, in which part of
his body

Shall I destroy him? whether there, there, or there?
That I may give the local wound a name;
And make distinct the very breach whereout
Hector's great spirit flew: Answer me, heavens !
Hect. It would discredit the bless'd gods, proud

man,

To answer such a question: Stand again : Think'st thou to catch my life so pleasantly,

There in the full convive we: afterwards,
As Hector's leisure, and your bounties shall
Concur together, severally entreat him.
Beat loud the tabourines, let the trumpets blow,
That this great soldier may his welcome know.

[Exeunt all but TROILUS and ULYSSES.
Tro. My lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,
In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?
Ulyss. At Menelaus' tent, most princely Troilus:
There Diomed doth feast with him to-night;
Who neither looks upon the heaven, nor earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.

Tro. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much, After we part from Agamemnon's tent, To bring me thither? Ulyss. You shall command me, sir. As gentle tell me, of what honour was This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there, That wails her absence?

Tro. O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars, A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord? She was belov'd, she lov'd; she is, and doth: But, still, sweet love is food for fortune's tooth.

[Exeunt.

Patr. Well said, Adversity! and what need these tricks?

Ther. Pr'ythee be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk thou art thought to be Achilles' male varlet.

Patr. Male varlet, you rogue! what's that? Ther. Why, his masculine whore. Now the rotten diseases of the south, the guts griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o'gravel i'the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciatica, limekilns i'the palm, incurable bone-ach, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries!

Patr. Why thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus?

Ther. Do I curse thee?

Patr. Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.

Ther. No? why art thou then exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sleive silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered with such water-flies; diminutives of nature!

Patr. Out, gall!

Ther. Finch egg!

Achil. My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite

From my great purpose in to-morrow's battle.
Here is a letter from queen Hecuba;

A token from her daughter, my fair love;
Both taxing me, and gaging me to keep

An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it:
Fall, Greeks fail, fame; honour, or go, or stay;
My major vow lies here, this I'll obey.
Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent;
This night in banqueting must all be spent.
Away, Patroclus.

[Exeunt ACHIJ LES and PATROCLUS. Ther. With too much blood and too little brain, these two may run mad; but if with too much brain, and too little blood, they do, I'll be a curer of madmen. Here's Agamemnon, - an honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails; but he has not so much brain as ear-wax: And the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull, the primitive statue, and oblique memorial of cuckolds; a thrifty shoeing-horn in chain, hanging at his brother's leg, to what form, but that he is, should wit larded with malice, and malice forced with wit, turn him to? To an ass, were nothing; he is both ass and ox: to an ox were nothing; he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care but to be Menelaus, I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would be, if I were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus. - Hey-day! spirits and fires!

Enter HECTOR, TROILUS, AJAX, AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, NESTOR, MENELAUS, and DIOMED, with lights.

Agam. We go wrong, we go wrong.
Ajax.

There, where we see the lights.

And welcome, both to those that go, or tarry.
Agam. Good night.

[Exeunt AGAMEMNON and MENELAUS. Achil. Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed, Keep Hector company an hour or two.

Dio. I cannot, lord; I have important business, The tide whereof is now.-Good night, great Hector. Hect. Give me your hand. Follow his torch, he goes

Ulyss.

To Calchas' tent; I'll keep you company.
[Aside to TROILUS.

Tro. Sweet sir, you honour me.
Hect.

And so good night. [Erit DIOMED; ULYSS. and TRO. following. Achil. Come, come, enter my tent.

[Exeunt ACHIL. HECTOR, AJAX, and NEST. Ther. That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will no more trust him when he leers, than I will a serpent when he hisses: he will spend his mouth, and promise, like Brabler the hound; but when he performs, astronomers foretell it; it is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun borrows of the moon, when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather leave to see Hector, than not to dog him: they say, he keeps a Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas' tent : I'll after. Nothing but lechery! all incontinent varlets ! [Exit.

SCENE II. The same. Before Calchas' Tent.
Enter DIOMedes.

Dio. What, are you up here, ho? speak.
Cal. [Within.] Who calls?
Dio. Diomed.
your daughter?

Calchas, I think.

Cal. [Within.] She comes to you.

Where's

No, yonder 'tis ;

Cres.

Remember? yes.

Dio.

Nay, but do then;

I trouble you.

Ajar. No, not a whit. Ulyss.

Here comes himself to guide you.

Hect.

And let your mind be coupled with your words.

Tro. What should she remember?
Ulyss. List!

Cres. O, all you gods!

pledge!

Thy master now lies thinking in his bed

Of thee, and me; and sighs, and takes my glove,
And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,
As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me;
He, that takes that, must take my heart withal.
Dio. I had your heart before, this follows it.
Tr I did swear patience.

Cres. You shall not have it, Diomed; 'faith you shall not;

I'll give you something else.

Dio. I will have this; Whose was it?
Cres.

'Tis no matter

Tro. Let it not be believ'd for womanhood! Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage To stubborn criticks - apt, without a theme, For depravation, -to square the general sex By Cressid's rule: rather think this not Cressid. Ulyss. What hath she done, prince, that can soil our mothers?

Tro. Nothing at all, unless that this were she. Ther. Will he swagger himself out on's own eyes?

Tro. This she? no, this is Diomed's Cressida : If beauty have a soul, this is not she;

If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimony,
If sanctimony be the gods' delight,

If there be rule in unity itself,

This was not she.

O madness of discourse,

That cause sets up with and against itself!
Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt
Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
Without revolt; this is, and is not, Cressid!
Within my soul there doth commence a fight
Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate
Divides more wider than the sky and earth;
And yet the spacious breadth of this division
Admits no orifice for a point, as subtle
As is Arachne's broken roof, to enter.
Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates;
Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven:
Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself;
The bonds of heaven are slipp'd, dissolv'd, and
loos'd;

And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy reliques
Of her o'er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.
Ulyss. May worthy Troilus be half attach'd
With that which here his passion doth express?
Tro. Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged
well

In characters as red as Mars his heart

Inflam'd with Venus: never did young man fancy
With so eternal and so fix'd a soul.
Hark, Greek; As much as I do Cressid love,
So much by weight hate I her Diomed :
That sleeve is mine, that he'll bear on his helm;
Were it a casque compos'd by Vulcan's skill,
My sword should bite it: not the dreadful spout,
Which shipmen do the hurricano call
Constring'd in mass by the almighty sun,
Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune's ear
In his descent, than shall my prompted sword
Falling on Diomed.

Ther. He'll tickle it for his concupy.

Farewell, revolted fair! - and, Diomed,
Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head!
Ulyss. I'll bring you to the gates.

Tro. Accept distracted thanks.

[Exeunt TROILUS, ENEAS, and ULYSSES Ther. 'Would, I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me any thing 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 [Exit.

them.

Enter TROILUS. How now, young man? mean'st thou to fight to-day And. Cassandra, call my father to persuade. [Erit CASSANDra.

Hect. 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.

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

Hect. What vice is that, good Troilus? chide me for it.

Tro. When many times the captive Grecians fall, Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword, You bid them rise and live.

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

Cas. 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.

Pri.
Come, Hector, come, go back :
Thy wife hath dream'd; 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.

And I do stand engag'd to many Greeks, Even in the faith of valour, to appear This morning to them.

Pri.

But thou shalt not go. Hect. 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. Cas. O Priam, yield not to him. And. Do not, dear father. Hect. Andromache, I am offended with you: Upon the love you bear me, get you in.

[Erit ANDROMACHE. Tro. This foolish, dreaming superstitious girl Makes all these bodements.

lieve,

I come to lose my arm, or win my sleeve.

AS TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other side,
PANDARUS.

Pan. Do you hear, my lord? do you hear?
Tro. What now?

Pan. Here's a letter from yon' poor girl.

Tro. Let me read.

Pan. A whoreson ptisick, a whoreson rascally ptisick 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 cursed, I cannot tell what to think on't. What says she there? Tro.

Words, words, mere words, no matter from
the heart;
[Tearing the letter.

The effect doth operate another way.

Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change toge

ther. —

My love with words and errors still she feeds; But edifies another with her deeds.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt severally.

- Between Troy and the Grecian Camp.

Alarums: Excursions. Enter THERSITES.

Ther. 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, on a sleeveless 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 proved 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. Soft! here come sleeve, and t'other.

Enter DIOMEDES, TROILUS following. Tro. Fly not; for, shouldst thou take the rive Styx, I would swim after.