Page images
PDF
EPUB

Thou art, great lord, my father's sister's son, 120
A cousin-german to great Priam's seed;
The obligation of our blood forbids
A gory emulation 'twixt us twain.

Were thy commixtion Greek and Trojan so
That thou could'st say 'This hand is Grecian all,
And this is Trojan; the sinews of this leg
All Greek, and this all Troy; my mother's
blood

Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister
Bounds in my father's'; by Jove multipotent,
Thou should'st not bear from me a Greekish
130

member

Wherein my sword had not impressure made
Of our rank feud. But the just gods gainsay
That any drop thou borrow'dst from thy mother,
My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword
Be drain'd! Let me embrace thee, Ajax :
By him that thunders, thou hast lusty arms;
Hector would have them fall upon him thus:
Cousin, all honour to thee!

Ajax. I thank thee, Hector: Thou art too gentle and too free a man: I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence A great addition earned in thy death.

Hect. Not Neoptolemus so mirable, On whose bright crest Fame with her loudest oyes

140

Cries This is he!' could promise to himself
A thought of added honour torn from Hector.
Ene. There is expectance here from both the
sides,
What further you will do.
Hect.
We'll answer it;
The issue is embracement: Ajax, farewell.
Ajax. If I might in entreaties find success,
As seld I have the chance, I would desire
My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.

Dio. 'Tis Agamemnon's wish, and great Achilles Doth long to see unarm'd the valiant Hector.

Hect. Eneas, call my brother Troilus to me, And signify this loving interview To the expecters of our Trojan part; Desire them home. Give me thy hand, my cousin ;

I will go eat with thee and see your knights. Ajax. Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.

150

[blocks in formation]

Hect. O you, my lord? by Mars his gauntlet, thanks!

Men. Let me confirm my princely brother's greeting:

You brace of war-like brothers, welcome hither.
Hect. Who must we answer?
Ene.

The noble Menelaus.

[blocks in formation]

morrow.

Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the timeUlyss. I wonder now how yonder city stands, When we have here her base and pillar by us.

Hect. I know your favour, Lord Ulysses, well. Ah! sir, there's many a Greek and Trojan dead, Since first I saw yourself and Diomed In Ilion, on your Greekish embassy.

Ulyss. Sir, I foretold you then what would

ensue :

My prophecy is but half his journey yet;
For yonder walls, that pertly front your town,
Yond towers, whose wanton tops do buss the
clouds,

Must kiss their own feet.

Hect. I must not believe you: There they stand yet, and modestly I think, The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost A drop of Grecian blood: the end crowns all, And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it.

Ulyss. So to him we leave it. Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome. After the general, I beseech you next To feast with me and see me at my tent.

Achil. I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses, thou!

Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee;

[blocks in formation]

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, or 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
As to prenominate in nice conjecture
Where thou wilt hit me dead?

250

Achil.
I tell thee, yea.
Hect. Wert thou the oracle to tell me so,
I'd not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee
well,

For I'll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there;
But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm,
I'll kill thee every where, yea, o'er and o'er.
You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag;
His insolence draws folly from my lips;
But I'll endeavour deeds to match these words,
Or may I never-

After we part from Agamemnon's tent,
To bring me thither?

Achil.
Dost thou entreat me, Hector?
To-morrow do I meet thee, fell as death;
To-night all friends.

Hect.
Thy hand upon that match. 270
Agam. First, all you peers of Greece, go to
my tent;

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; 280
Who neither looks on heaven nor on 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,

Myss.
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

290

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.

[blocks in formation]

Ther. Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by Ajax. Do not chafe thee, cousin: 260 thy talk: thou art thought to be Achilles' male And you, Achilles, let these threats alone, varlet. Till accident and purpose bring you to 't: You may have every day enough of Hector, If you have stomach. The general state, I fear, Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.

Hect. I pray you, let us see you in the field; We have had pelting wars since you refus'd The Grecians' cause.

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, sciaticas, lime-kilns i' the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries!

[blocks in formation]

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; 50
This night in banqueting must all be spent.
Away, Patroclus!

Exeunt ACHILLES 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 a 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!

[blocks in formation]

Achil. Come, come; enter my tent. Exeunt ACHILLES, HECTOR, AJAX, and NESTOR. 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 Brabbler 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. 109

And so, good night. Exit DIOMEDES; ULYSSES and TROILUS following.

SCENE II.-The Same. Before CALCHAS' Tent. Enter DIOMEDES.

Dio. What, are you up here, ho? speak.
Cal. Within. Who calls?

Dio. Diomed. Calchas, I think. Where's your daughter?

Cal. Within. She comes to you.

Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance; after them, THERSITES.

Ulyss. Stand where the torch may not dis

cover us.

Enter CRESSIDA.

Tro. Cressid comes forth to him.
Dio.
How now, my charge!
Cres. Now, my sweet guardian! Hark! a
word with you.
Whispers.

Tro. Yea, so familiar!

Ulyss. She will sing any man at first sight.

11

Ther. And any man may sing her, if he can take her clef; she's noted. Dio. Will you remember? Cres. Remember! yes.

Dio. Nay, but do then;

And let your mind be coupled with your words. Tro. What should she remember?

Ulyss. List!

Cres. Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.

Ther. Roguery!

Dio. Nay, then,

Cres. I'll tell you what,

Dio. Foh, foh! come, tell a pin: you are for.

sworn.

Cres. In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?

Ther. A juggling trick,-to be secretly open. Dio. What did you swear you would bestow on me?

Cres. I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath; Bid me do any thing but that, sweet Greek. Dio. Good night.

Hold, patience!

Tro.
Ulyss.

How now, Trojan! Diomed.Dio. No, no; good night: I'll be your fool

Cres.

no more.

Tro. Thy better must.
Cres.
Hark! one word in your ear. $9
Tro. O plague and madness

Ulyss. You are mov'd, prince; let us depart, pray you,

Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself
To wrathful terms. This place is dangerous;
The time right deadly: I beseech you, go.
Tro. Behold, I pray you!
Clyss.
Nay, good my lord, go off :
You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.
Tro. I pray thee, stay.
Ulyss.

You have not patience; come. Tro. I pray you, stay. By hell and all hell's torments,

I will not speak a word!
Dio.
And so, good night. 40
Cres. Nay, but you part in anger.
Tro.

|

Doth that grieve thee?

[blocks in formation]

Tro.
She strokes his cheek!
Ulyss.
Come, come.
Tro. Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a
word:

There is between my will and all offences
A guard of patience: stay a little while.

50

Ther. How the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and potato-finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry!

Dio. But will you then?

Cres. In faith, I will, la; never trust me else. Dio. Give me some token for the surety of it. Cres. I'll fetch you one. Exit.

Ulyss. You have sworn patience. Tro. Fear me not, sweet lord; I will not be myself, nor have cognition Of what I feel I am all patience.

stone!

Dio. I shall have it.

60

Re-enter CRESSIDA.

Ther. Now the pledge! now, now, now!
Cres. Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.
Tro. O beauty! where is thy faith?
Ulyss.

My lord,-
Tro. I will be patient; outwardly I will.
Cres. You look upon that sleeve; behold it
well.

He lov'd me-O false wench!-Give 't me again.
Dio. Whose was 't?

Cres. It is no matter, now I have 't again :
I will not meet with you to-morrow night.
I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.

70

Ther. Now she sharpens: well said, whet

80

Dio. I had your heart before; this follows it.
Tro. 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.
Dio. Come, tell me whose it was.
Cres. 'Twas one's that lov'd me better than
you will.

But, now you have it, take it.

Cres.

What, this?

Dio.

Ay, that. Cres. O all you gods. O! pretty, pretty 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 doth take my heart withal.

Dio,

Whose was it? Cres. By all Diana's waiting-women yond, And by herself, I will not tell you whose. Dio. To-morrow will I wear it on my helm, And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it. Tro. Wert thou the devil, and wor'st it on thy horn,

91

It should be challeng'd.

Cres. Well, well, 'tis done, 'tis past and yet it is not:

I will not keep my word.

Dio.

Why then, farewell; Thou never shalt mock Diomed again. Cres. You shall not go: one cannot speak a word But it straight starts you.

Dio.

I do not like this fooling. Ther. Nor I, by Pluto: but that that likes not me Pleases me best.

Dio. What! shall I come? the hour? Cres. Ay, come:-O Jove! 100 Do come :-I shall be plagu'd. Dio. Farewell till then. Cres. Good night I prithee, come. Exit DIOMEDES. Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee, But with my heart the other eye doth see. Ah! poor our sex; this fault in us I find, The error of our eye directs our mind. What error leads must err. O! then conclude Minds sway'd by eyes are full of turpitude.

Exit.

Ther. A proof of strength she could not publish more, Unless she said 'My mind is now turn'd whore.' Ulyss. All's done, my lord. Tro.

It is.

Ulyss.

112

Why stay we then? Tro. To make a recordation to my soul Of every syllable that here was spoke. But if I tell how these two did co-act, Shall I not lie in publishing a truth? Sith yet there is a credence in my heart, An esperance so obstinately strong, That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears, As if those organs had deceptious functions, Created only to calumniate. Was Cressid here?

120

[blocks in formation]

By Cressid's rule: rather think this not Cressid. Ulyss. What hath she done, prince, that can soil our mothers?

130

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 is not she. O madness of discourse,
That cause sets up with and against thyself;
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 conduce 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 Ariachne's broken woof 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;

152

And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy
reliques

140

Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,

And they'll seem glorious.

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. burning devil take them! Exit. 193

A

Ulyss.
O! contain yourself;
Your passion draws ears hither.

Enter ENEAS.

Ene. I have been seeking you this hour, my lord.

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

160

Cas. The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows:

Inflam'd with Venus: never did young man fancy They are polluted offerings, more abhorr'd
With so eternal and so fix'd a soul.
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.

Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy :
Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.
Tro. Have with you, prince. My courteous
lord, adieu.
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!

SCENE III.-Troy. Before PRIAM's Palace.

Enter HECTOR and ANDROMACHE,

And. When was my lord so much ungently
temper'd,

To stop his ears against admonishment?
Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day.

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

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

Hect. No more, I say.

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 in 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 170
In his descent than shall my prompted sword
Falling on Diomed.

Hect.
Hold you still, I say;
Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate:
Life every man holds dear; but the dear man

Ther. He'll tickle it for his concupy.

Tro. O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, Holds honour far more precious-dear than life. false !

Enter TROILUS.

181

Enter CASSANDRA.

Cas.

Where is my brother Hector? And. Here, sister; arm'd, and bloody in intent. Consort with me in loud and dear petition; Pursue we him on knees; for I have dream'd 19 Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.

Cas. O 'tis true.

Hect.
Ho! bid my trumpet sound.
Cas. No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet
brother.

Hect. Be gone, I say: the gods have heard

me swear.

29

And. 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.

Cas. It is the purpose that makes strong the

Vow ;

But vows to every purpose must not hold.
Unarm, sweet Hector.

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

And. Cassandra, call my father to persuade.
Exit CASSANDRA.
Hect. No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy
harness, youth;

31

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.

[merged small][ocr errors]
« PreviousContinue »