Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.
TROILUS. Have with you, Prince. My
courteous lord, adieu.
Fairwell, revolted fair!-and, 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' th' 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 mother;
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
Beck'ning 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' th's 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
Enter THERSITES. Excursions
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 Troyan 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. A th' t'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
policygrows 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,
Troyan-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 Troyan,
And am her
knight by proof.
SERVANT. I go, my lord. Exit
Enter AGAMEMNON
AGAMEMNON. Renew, renew! The
fierce Polydamus
Hath beat down enon;
bastard Margarelon
Hath Doreus prisoner,
And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam,
Upon the pashed corses of the kings