ACT IIISCENE I. Troy. Priam’s palace.Music sounds within. EnterPandarusand aServant.PANDARUS.Friend, you—pray you, a word. Do you not follow the young Lord Paris?SERVANT.Ay, sir, when he goes before me.PANDARUS.You depend upon him, I mean?SERVANT.Sir, I do depend upon the Lord.PANDARUS.You depend upon a notable gentleman; I must needs praise him.SERVANT.The Lord be praised!PANDARUS.You know me, do you not?SERVANT.Faith, sir, superficially.PANDARUS.Friend, know me better: I am the Lord Pandarus.SERVANT.I hope I shall know your honour better.PANDARUS.I do desire it.SERVANT.You are in the state of grace?PANDARUS.Grace? Not so, friend; honour and lordship are my titles. What music is this?SERVANT.I do but partly know, sir; it is music in parts.PANDARUS.Know you the musicians?SERVANT.Wholly, sir.PANDARUS.Who play they to?SERVANT.To the hearers, sir.PANDARUS.At whose pleasure, friend?SERVANT.At mine, sir, and theirs that love music.PANDARUS.Command, I mean, friend.SERVANT.Who shall I command, sir?PANDARUS.Friend, we understand not one another: I am too courtly, and thou art too cunning. At whose request do these men play?SERVANT.That’s to’t, indeed, sir. Marry, sir, at the request of Paris my lord, who is there in person; with him the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of beauty, love’s invisible soul—PANDARUS.Who, my cousin, Cressida?SERVANT.No, sir, Helen. Could not you find out that by her attributes?PANDARUS.It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the Lady Cressida. I come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troilus; I will make a complimental assault upon him, for my business seethes.SERVANT.Sodden business! There’s a stew’d phrase indeed!EnterParisandHelen,attended.PANDARUS.Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company! Fair desires, in all fair measure, fairly guide them—especially to you, fair queen! Fair thoughts be your fair pillow.HELEN.Dear lord, you are full of fair words.PANDARUS.You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen. Fair prince, here is good broken music.PARIS.You have broke it, cousin; and by my life, you shall make it whole again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your performance.HELEN.He is full of harmony.PANDARUS.Truly, lady, no.HELEN.O, sir—PANDARUS.Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude.PARIS.Well said, my lord. Well, you say so in fits.PANDARUS.I have business to my lord, dear queen. My lord, will you vouchsafe me a word?HELEN.Nay, this shall not hedge us out. We’ll hear you sing, certainly—PANDARUS.Well sweet queen, you are pleasant with me. But, marry, thus, my lord: my dear lord and most esteemed friend, your brother Troilus—HELEN.My Lord Pandarus, honey-sweet lord—PANDARUS.Go to, sweet queen, go to—commends himself most affectionately to you—HELEN.You shall not bob us out of our melody. If you do, our melancholy upon your head!PANDARUS.Sweet queen, sweet queen; that’s a sweet queen, i’ faith.HELEN.And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.PANDARUS.Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall it not, in truth, la. Nay, I care not for such words; no, no.—And, my lord, he desires you that, if the King call for him at supper, you will make his excuse.HELEN.My Lord Pandarus!PANDARUS.What says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen?PARIS.What exploit’s in hand? Where sups he tonight?HELEN.Nay, but, my lord—PANDARUS.What says my sweet queen?—My cousin will fall out with you.HELEN.You must not know where he sups.PARIS.I’ll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida.PANDARUS.No, no, no such matter; you are wide. Come, your disposer is sick.PARIS.Well, I’ll make’s excuse.PANDARUS.Ay, good my lord. Why should you say Cressida?No, your poor disposer’s sick.PARIS.I spy.PANDARUS.You spy! What do you spy?—Come, give me an instrument. Now, sweet queen.HELEN.Why, this is kindly done.PANDARUS.My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet queen.HELEN.She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my Lord Paris.PANDARUS.He? No, she’ll none of him; they two are twain.HELEN.Falling in, after falling out, may make them three.PANDARUS.Come, come. I’ll hear no more of this; I’ll sing you a song now.HELEN.Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead.PANDARUS.Ay, you may, you may.HELEN.Let thy song be love. This love will undo us all. O Cupid, Cupid, Cupid!PANDARUS.Love! Ay, that it shall, i’ faith.PARIS.Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love.PANDARUS.In good troth, it begins so.[Sings.]Love, love, nothing but love, still love, still more!For, oh, love’s bowShoots buck and doe;The shaft confoundsNot that it wounds,But tickles still the sore.These lovers cry, O ho, they die!Yet that which seems the wound to killDoth turn O ho! to ha! ha! he!So dying love lives still.O ho! a while, but ha! ha! ha!O ho! groans out for ha! ha! ha!—hey ho!HELEN.In love, i’ faith, to the very tip of the nose.PARIS.He eats nothing but doves, love; and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love.PANDARUS.Is this the generation of love: hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who’s a-field today?PARIS.Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy. I would fain have arm’d today, but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not?HELEN.He hangs the lip at something. You know all, Lord Pandarus.PANDARUS.Not I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they spend today. You’ll remember your brother’s excuse?PARIS.To a hair.PANDARUS.Farewell, sweet queen.HELEN.Commend me to your niece.PANDARUS.I will, sweet queen.[Exit. Sound a retreat.]PARIS.They’re come from the field. Let us to Priam’s hallTo greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo youTo help unarm our Hector. His stubborn buckles,With these your white enchanting fingers touch’d,Shall more obey than to the edge of steelOr force of Greekish sinews; you shall do moreThan all the island kings—disarm great Hector.HELEN.’Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris;Yea, what he shall receive of us in dutyGives us more palm in beauty than we have,Yea, overshines ourself.PARIS.Sweet, above thought I love thee.[Exeunt.]SCENE II. Troy. Pandarus’ orchard.EnterPandarusandTroilus’ Boy,meeting.PANDARUS.How now! Where’s thy master? At my cousin Cressida’s?BOY.No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.EnterTroilus.PANDARUS.O, here he comes. How now, how now?TROILUS.Sirrah, walk off.[ExitBoy.]PANDARUS.Have you seen my cousin?TROILUS.No, Pandarus. I stalk about her doorLike a strange soul upon the Stygian banksStaying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,And give me swift transportance to these fieldsWhere I may wallow in the lily bedsPropos’d for the deserver! O gentle Pandar,from Cupid’s shoulder pluck his painted wings,and fly with me to Cressid!PANDARUS.Walk here i’ th’ orchard, I’ll bring her straight.[Exit.]TROILUS.I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.Th’imaginary relish is so sweetThat it enchants my sense; what will it beWhen that the wat’ry palate tastes indeedLove’s thrice-repured nectar? Death, I fear me;Sounding destruction; or some joy too fine,Too subtle-potent, tun’d too sharp in sweetness,For the capacity of my ruder powers.I fear it much; and I do fear besidesThat I shall lose distinction in my joys;As doth a battle, when they charge on heapsThe enemy flying.Re-enterPandarus.PANDARUS.She’s making her ready, she’ll come straight; you must be witty now. She does so blush, and fetches her wind so short, as if she were fray’d with a sprite. I’ll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain; she fetches her breath as short as a new-ta’en sparrow.[Exit.]TROILUS.Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom.My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse,And all my powers do their bestowing lose,Like vassalage at unawares encount’ringThe eye of majesty.Re-enterPandaruswithCressida.PANDARUS.Come, come, what need you blush? Shame’s a baby. Here she is now; swear the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me.—What, are you gone again? You must be watch’d ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; and you draw backward, we’ll put you i’ th’ fills. Why do you not speak to her? Come, draw this curtain and let’s see your picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! And ’twere dark, you’d close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. How now, a kiss in fee-farm! Build there, carpenter; the air is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i’ th’ river. Go to, go to.TROILUS.You have bereft me of all words, lady.PANDARUS.Words pay no debts, give her deeds; but she’ll bereave you o’ th’ deeds too, if she call your activity in question. What, billing again? Here’s ‘In witness whereof the parties interchangeably.’ Come in, come in; I’ll go get a fire.[Exit.]CRESSIDA.Will you walk in, my lord?TROILUS.O Cressid, how often have I wish’d me thus!CRESSIDA.Wish’d, my lord! The gods grant—O my lord!TROILUS.What should they grant? What makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?CRESSIDA.More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.TROILUS.Fears make devils of cherubins; they never see truly.CRESSIDA.Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear. To fear the worst oft cures the worse.TROILUS.O, let my lady apprehend no fear! In all Cupid’s pageant there is presented no monster.CRESSIDA.Nor nothing monstrous neither?TROILUS.Nothing, but our undertakings when we vow to weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our mistress to devise imposition enough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed. This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the will is infinite, and the execution confin’d; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to limit.CRESSIDA.They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one. They that have the voice of lions and the act of hares, are they not monsters?TROILUS.Are there such? Such are not we. Praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go bare till merit crown it. No perfection in reversion shall have a praise in present. We will not name desert before his birth; and, being born, his addition shall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst shall be a mock for his truth; and what truth can speak truest not truer than Troilus.CRESSIDA.Will you walk in, my lord?Re-enterPandarus.PANDARUS.What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?CRESSIDA.Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.PANDARUS.I thank you for that; if my lord get a boy of you, you’ll give him me. Be true to my lord; if he flinch, chide me for it.TROILUS.You know now your hostages: your uncle’s word and my firm faith.PANDARUS.Nay, I’ll give my word for her too: our kindred, though they be long ere they are wooed, they are constant being won; they are burs, I can tell you; they’ll stick where they are thrown.CRESSIDA.Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart.Prince Troilus, I have lov’d you night and dayFor many weary months.TROILUS.Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?CRESSIDA.Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord,With the first glance that ever—pardon me.If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.I love you now; but till now not so muchBut I might master it. In faith, I lie;My thoughts were like unbridled children, grownToo headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!Why have I blabb’d? Who shall be true to us,When we are so unsecret to ourselves?But, though I lov’d you well, I woo’d you not;And yet, good faith, I wish’d myself a man,Or that we women had men’s privilegeOf speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,For in this rapture I shall surely speakThe thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness drawsMy very soul of counsel. Stop my mouth.TROILUS.And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.PANDARUS.Pretty, i’ faith.CRESSIDA.My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me;’Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss.I am asham’d. O heavens! what have I done?For this time will I take my leave, my lord.TROILUS.Your leave, sweet Cressid!PANDARUS.Leave! And you take leave till tomorrow morning—CRESSIDA.Pray you, content you.TROILUS.What offends you, lady?CRESSIDA.Sir, mine own company.TROILUS.You cannot shun yourself.CRESSIDA.Let me go and try.I have a kind of self resides with you;But an unkind self, that itself will leaveTo be another’s fool. I would be gone.Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.TROILUS.Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.CRESSIDA.Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love;And fell so roundly to a large confessionTo angle for your thoughts; but you are wise—Or else you love not; for to be wise and loveExceeds man’s might; that dwells with gods above.TROILUS.O that I thought it could be in a woman—As, if it can, I will presume in you—To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;To keep her constancy in plight and youth,Outliving beauty’s outward, with a mindThat doth renew swifter than blood decays!Or that persuasion could but thus convince meThat my integrity and truth to youMight be affronted with the match and weightOf such a winnowed purity in love.How were I then uplifted! But, alas,I am as true as truth’s simplicity,And simpler than the infancy of truth.CRESSIDA.In that I’ll war with you.TROILUS.O virtuous fight,When right with right wars who shall be most right!True swains in love shall in the world to comeApprove their truth by Troilus, when their rhymes,Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,Want similes, truth tir’d with iteration—As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,As iron to adamant, as earth to th’ centre—Yet, after all comparisons of truth,As truth’s authentic author to be cited,‘As true as Troilus’ shall crown up the verseAnd sanctify the numbers.CRESSIDA.Prophet may you be!If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,When time is old and hath forgot itself,When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,And blind oblivion swallow’d cities up,And mighty states characterless are gratedTo dusty nothing—yet let memoryFrom false to false, among false maids in love,Upbraid my falsehood when th’ have said ‘As falseAs air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,As fox to lamb, or wolf to heifer’s calf,Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son’—Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,‘As false as Cressid.’PANDARUS.Go to, a bargain made; seal it, seal it; I’ll be the witness. Here I hold your hand; here my cousin’s. If ever you prove false one to another, since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be call’d to the world’s end after my name—call them all Pandars; let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers between Pandars. Say ‘Amen.’TROILUS.Amen.CRESSIDA.Amen.PANDARUS.Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber and a bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death. Away![ExeuntTroilusandCressida.]And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here,Bed, chamber, pander, to provide this gear![Exit.]SCENE III. The Greek camp.Flourish. EnterAgamemnon, Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, Ajax, MenelausandCalchas.CALCHAS.Now, Princes, for the service I have done,Th’advantage of the time prompts me aloudTo call for recompense. Appear it to your mindThat, through the sight I bear in things to come,I have abandon’d Troy, left my possession,Incurr’d a traitor’s name, expos’d myselfFrom certain and possess’d conveniencesTo doubtful fortunes, sequest’ring from me allThat time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,Made tame and most familiar to my nature;And here, to do you service, am becomeAs new into the world, strange, unacquainted—I do beseech you, as in way of taste,To give me now a little benefitOut of those many regist’red in promise,Which you say live to come in my behalf.AGAMEMNON.What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? Make demand.CALCHAS.You have a Trojan prisoner call’d Antenor,Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear.Oft have you—often have you thanks therefore—Desir’d my Cressid in right great exchange,Whom Troy hath still denied; but this Antenor,I know, is such a wrest in their affairsThat their negotiations all must slackWanting his manage; and they will almostGive us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,In change of him. Let him be sent, great Princes,And he shall buy my daughter; and her presenceShall quite strike off all service I have doneIn most accepted pain.AGAMEMNON.Let Diomedes bear him,And bring us Cressid hither. Calchas shall haveWhat he requests of us. Good Diomed,Furnish you fairly for this interchange;Withal, bring word if Hector will tomorrowBe answer’d in his challenge. Ajax is ready.DIOMEDES.This shall I undertake; and ’tis a burdenWhich I am proud to bear.[ExeuntDiomedesandCalchas.][AchillesandPatroclusstand in their tent.]ULYSSES.Achilles stands i’ th’entrance of his tent.Please it our general pass strangely by him,As if he were forgot; and, Princes all,Lay negligent and loose regard upon him.I will come last. ’Tis like he’ll question meWhy such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn’d on him.If so, I have derision med’cinableTo use between your strangeness and his pride,Which his own will shall have desire to drink.It may do good. Pride hath no other glassTo show itself but pride; for supple kneesFeed arrogance and are the proud man’s fees.AGAMEMNON.We’ll execute your purpose, and put onA form of strangeness as we pass along.So do each lord; and either greet him not,Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him moreThan if not look’d on. I will lead the way.ACHILLES.What comes the general to speak with me?You know my mind. I’ll fight no more ’gainst Troy.AGAMEMNON.What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?NESTOR.Would you, my lord, aught with the general?ACHILLES.No.NESTOR.Nothing, my lord.AGAMEMNON.The better.[ExeuntAgamemnonandNestor.]ACHILLES.Good day, good day.MENELAUS.How do you? How do you?[Exit.]ACHILLES.What, does the cuckold scorn me?AJAX.How now, Patroclus?ACHILLES.Good morrow, Ajax.AJAX.Ha?ACHILLES.Good morrow.AJAX.Ay, and good next day too.[Exit.]ACHILLES.What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?PATROCLUS.They pass by strangely. They were us’d to bend,To send their smiles before them to Achilles,To come as humbly as they us’d to creepTo holy altars.ACHILLES.What, am I poor of late?’Tis certain, greatness, once fall’n out with fortune,Must fall out with men too. What the declin’d is,He shall as soon read in the eyes of othersAs feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,Show not their mealy wings but to the summer;And not a man for being simply manHath any honour, but honour for those honoursThat are without him, as place, riches, and favour,Prizes of accident, as oft as merit;Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,The love that lean’d on them as slippery too,Doth one pluck down another, and togetherDie in the fall. But ’tis not so with me:Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoyAt ample point all that I did possessSave these men’s looks; who do, methinks, find outSomething not worth in me such rich beholdingAs they have often given. Here is Ulysses.I’ll interrupt his reading.How now, Ulysses!ULYSSES.Now, great Thetis’ son!ACHILLES.What are you reading?ULYSSES.A strange fellow hereWrites me that man—how dearly ever parted,How much in having, or without or in—Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;As when his virtues shining upon othersHeat them, and they retort that heat againTo the first giver.ACHILLES.This is not strange, Ulysses.The beauty that is borne here in the faceThe bearer knows not, but commends itselfTo others’ eyes; nor doth the eye itself—That most pure spirit of sense—behold itself,Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposedSalutes each other with each other’s form;For speculation turns not to itselfTill it hath travell’d, and is mirror’d thereWhere it may see itself. This is not strange at all.ULYSSES.I do not strain at the position—It is familiar—but at the author’s drift;Who, in his circumstance, expressly provesThat no man is the lord of anything,Though in and of him there be much consisting,Till he communicate his parts to others;Nor doth he of himself know them for aughtTill he behold them formed in the applauseWhere th’are extended; who, like an arch, reverb’rateThe voice again; or, like a gate of steelFronting the sun, receives and renders backHis figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this;And apprehended here immediatelyTh’unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there!A very horse that has he knows not what!Nature, what things there areMost abject in regard and dear in use!What things again most dear in the esteemAnd poor in worth! Now shall we see tomorrow—An act that very chance doth throw upon him—Ajax renown’d. O heavens, what some men do,While some men leave to do!How some men creep in skittish Fortune’s hall,Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!How one man eats into another’s pride,While pride is fasting in his wantonness!To see these Grecian lords!—why, even alreadyThey clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast,And great Troy shrieking.ACHILLES.I do believe it; for they pass’d by meAs misers do by beggars, neither gave to meGood word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?ULYSSES.Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,A great-siz’d monster of ingratitudes.Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour’dAs fast as they are made, forgot as soonAs done. Perseverance, dear my lord,Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hangQuite out of fashion, like a rusty mailIn monumental mock’ry. Take the instant way;For honour travels in a strait so narrow—Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path,For emulation hath a thousand sonsThat one by one pursue; if you give way,Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,Like to an ent’red tide they all rush byAnd leave you hindmost;Or, like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank,Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,O’er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present,Though less than yours in past, must o’ertop yours;For Time is like a fashionable host,That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’hand;And with his arms out-stretch’d, as he would fly,Grasps in the comer. The welcome ever smiles,And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seekRemuneration for the thing it was;For beauty, wit,High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,Love, friendship, charity, are subjects allTo envious and calumniating Time.One touch of nature makes the whole world kin—That all with one consent praise new-born gauds,Though they are made and moulded of things past,And give to dust that is a little giltMore laud than gilt o’er-dusted.The present eye praises the present object.Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax,Since things in motion sooner catch the eyeThan what stirs not. The cry went once on thee,And still it might, and yet it may again,If thou wouldst not entomb thyself aliveAnd case thy reputation in thy tent,Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of lateMade emulous missions ’mongst the gods themselves,And drave great Mars to faction.ACHILLES.Of this my privacyI have strong reasons.ULYSSES.But ’gainst your privacyThe reasons are more potent and heroical.’Tis known, Achilles, that you are in loveWith one of Priam’s daughters.ACHILLES.Ha! known!ULYSSES.Is that a wonder?The providence that’s in a watchful stateKnows almost every grain of Plutus’ gold;Finds bottom in th’uncomprehensive deeps;Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,Do thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.There is a mystery—with whom relationDurst never meddle—in the soul of state,Which hath an operation more divineThan breath or pen can give expressure to.All the commerce that you have had with TroyAs perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;And better would it fit Achilles muchTo throw down Hector than Polyxena.But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,When fame shall in our island sound her trump,And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing‘Great Hector’s sister did Achilles win;But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.’Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak.The fool slides o’er the ice that you should break.[Exit.]PATROCLUS.To this effect, Achilles, have I mov’d you.A woman impudent and mannish grownIs not more loath’d than an effeminate manIn time of action. I stand condemn’d for this;They think my little stomach to the warAnd your great love to me restrains you thus.Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton CupidShall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,And, like a dew-drop from the lion’s mane,Be shook to air.ACHILLES.Shall Ajax fight with Hector?PATROCLUS.Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.ACHILLES.I see my reputation is at stake;My fame is shrewdly gor’d.PATROCLUS.O, then, beware:Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves;Omission to do what is necessarySeals a commission to a blank of danger;And danger, like an ague, subtly taintsEven then when they sit idly in the sun.ACHILLES.Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus.I’ll send the fool to Ajax, and desire himT’invite the Trojan lords, after the combat,To see us here unarm’d. I have a woman’s longing,An appetite that I am sick withal,To see great Hector in his weeds of peace;To talk with him, and to behold his visage,Even to my full of view.EnterThersites.A labour sav’d!THERSITES.A wonder!ACHILLES.What?THERSITES.Ajax goes up and down the field asking for himself.ACHILLES.How so?THERSITES.He must fight singly tomorrow with Hector, and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he raves in saying nothing.ACHILLES.How can that be?THERSITES.Why, a’ stalks up and down like a peacock—a stride and a stand; ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning, bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say ‘There were wit in this head, and ’twould out’; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man’s undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i’ th’ combat, he’ll break’t himself in vainglory. He knows not me. I said ‘Good morrow, Ajax’; and he replies ‘Thanks, Agamemnon.’ What think you of this man that takes me for the general? He’s grown a very land fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may wear it on both sides, like leather jerkin.ACHILLES.Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.THERSITES.Who, I? Why, he’ll answer nobody; he professes not answering. Speaking is for beggars: he wears his tongue in’s arms. I will put on his presence. Let Patroclus make his demands to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax.ACHILLES.To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarm’d to my tent; and to procure safe conduct for his person of the magnanimous and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honour’d Captain General of the Grecian army, Agamemnon. Do this.PATROCLUS.Jove bless great Ajax!THERSITES.Hum!PATROCLUS.I come from the worthy Achilles—THERSITES.Ha!PATROCLUS.Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent—THERSITES.Hum!PATROCLUS.And to procure safe conduct from Agamemnon.THERSITES.Agamemnon?PATROCLUS.Ay, my lord.THERSITES.Ha!PATROCLUS.What you say to’t?THERSITES.God buy you, with all my heart.PATROCLUS.Your answer, sir.THERSITES.If tomorrow be a fair day, by eleven of the clock it will go one way or other. Howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me.PATROCLUS.Your answer, sir.THERSITES.Fare ye well, with all my heart.ACHILLES.Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?THERSITES.No, but out of tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has knock’d out his brains, I know not; but, I am sure, none; unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.ACHILLES.Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.THERSITES.Let me bear another to his horse; for that’s the more capable creature.ACHILLES.My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr’d;And I myself see not the bottom of it.[ExeuntAchillesandPatroclus.]THERSITES.Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it. I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance.[Exit.]
Music sounds within. EnterPandarusand aServant.
PANDARUS.Friend, you—pray you, a word. Do you not follow the young Lord Paris?
SERVANT.Ay, sir, when he goes before me.
PANDARUS.You depend upon him, I mean?
SERVANT.Sir, I do depend upon the Lord.
PANDARUS.You depend upon a notable gentleman; I must needs praise him.
SERVANT.The Lord be praised!
PANDARUS.You know me, do you not?
SERVANT.Faith, sir, superficially.
PANDARUS.Friend, know me better: I am the Lord Pandarus.
SERVANT.I hope I shall know your honour better.
PANDARUS.I do desire it.
SERVANT.You are in the state of grace?
PANDARUS.Grace? Not so, friend; honour and lordship are my titles. What music is this?
SERVANT.I do but partly know, sir; it is music in parts.
PANDARUS.Know you the musicians?
SERVANT.Wholly, sir.
PANDARUS.Who play they to?
SERVANT.To the hearers, sir.
PANDARUS.At whose pleasure, friend?
SERVANT.At mine, sir, and theirs that love music.
PANDARUS.Command, I mean, friend.
SERVANT.Who shall I command, sir?
PANDARUS.Friend, we understand not one another: I am too courtly, and thou art too cunning. At whose request do these men play?
SERVANT.That’s to’t, indeed, sir. Marry, sir, at the request of Paris my lord, who is there in person; with him the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of beauty, love’s invisible soul—
PANDARUS.Who, my cousin, Cressida?
SERVANT.No, sir, Helen. Could not you find out that by her attributes?
PANDARUS.It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the Lady Cressida. I come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troilus; I will make a complimental assault upon him, for my business seethes.
SERVANT.Sodden business! There’s a stew’d phrase indeed!
EnterParisandHelen,attended.
PANDARUS.Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company! Fair desires, in all fair measure, fairly guide them—especially to you, fair queen! Fair thoughts be your fair pillow.
HELEN.Dear lord, you are full of fair words.
PANDARUS.You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen. Fair prince, here is good broken music.
PARIS.You have broke it, cousin; and by my life, you shall make it whole again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your performance.
HELEN.He is full of harmony.
PANDARUS.Truly, lady, no.
HELEN.O, sir—
PANDARUS.Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude.
PARIS.Well said, my lord. Well, you say so in fits.
PANDARUS.I have business to my lord, dear queen. My lord, will you vouchsafe me a word?
HELEN.Nay, this shall not hedge us out. We’ll hear you sing, certainly—
PANDARUS.Well sweet queen, you are pleasant with me. But, marry, thus, my lord: my dear lord and most esteemed friend, your brother Troilus—
HELEN.My Lord Pandarus, honey-sweet lord—
PANDARUS.Go to, sweet queen, go to—commends himself most affectionately to you—
HELEN.You shall not bob us out of our melody. If you do, our melancholy upon your head!
PANDARUS.Sweet queen, sweet queen; that’s a sweet queen, i’ faith.
HELEN.And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.
PANDARUS.Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall it not, in truth, la. Nay, I care not for such words; no, no.—And, my lord, he desires you that, if the King call for him at supper, you will make his excuse.
HELEN.My Lord Pandarus!
PANDARUS.What says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen?
PARIS.What exploit’s in hand? Where sups he tonight?
HELEN.Nay, but, my lord—
PANDARUS.What says my sweet queen?—My cousin will fall out with you.
HELEN.You must not know where he sups.
PARIS.I’ll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida.
PANDARUS.No, no, no such matter; you are wide. Come, your disposer is sick.
PARIS.Well, I’ll make’s excuse.
PANDARUS.Ay, good my lord. Why should you say Cressida?No, your poor disposer’s sick.
PARIS.I spy.
PANDARUS.You spy! What do you spy?—Come, give me an instrument. Now, sweet queen.
HELEN.Why, this is kindly done.
PANDARUS.My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet queen.
HELEN.She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my Lord Paris.
PANDARUS.He? No, she’ll none of him; they two are twain.
HELEN.Falling in, after falling out, may make them three.
PANDARUS.Come, come. I’ll hear no more of this; I’ll sing you a song now.
HELEN.Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead.
PANDARUS.Ay, you may, you may.
HELEN.Let thy song be love. This love will undo us all. O Cupid, Cupid, Cupid!
PANDARUS.Love! Ay, that it shall, i’ faith.
PARIS.Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love.
PANDARUS.In good troth, it begins so.
[Sings.]
Love, love, nothing but love, still love, still more!For, oh, love’s bowShoots buck and doe;The shaft confoundsNot that it wounds,But tickles still the sore.These lovers cry, O ho, they die!Yet that which seems the wound to killDoth turn O ho! to ha! ha! he!So dying love lives still.O ho! a while, but ha! ha! ha!O ho! groans out for ha! ha! ha!—hey ho!
HELEN.In love, i’ faith, to the very tip of the nose.
PARIS.He eats nothing but doves, love; and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love.
PANDARUS.Is this the generation of love: hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who’s a-field today?
PARIS.Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy. I would fain have arm’d today, but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not?
HELEN.He hangs the lip at something. You know all, Lord Pandarus.
PANDARUS.Not I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they spend today. You’ll remember your brother’s excuse?
PARIS.To a hair.
PANDARUS.Farewell, sweet queen.
HELEN.Commend me to your niece.
PANDARUS.I will, sweet queen.
[Exit. Sound a retreat.]
PARIS.They’re come from the field. Let us to Priam’s hallTo greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo youTo help unarm our Hector. His stubborn buckles,With these your white enchanting fingers touch’d,Shall more obey than to the edge of steelOr force of Greekish sinews; you shall do moreThan all the island kings—disarm great Hector.
HELEN.’Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris;Yea, what he shall receive of us in dutyGives us more palm in beauty than we have,Yea, overshines ourself.
PARIS.Sweet, above thought I love thee.
[Exeunt.]
EnterPandarusandTroilus’ Boy,meeting.
PANDARUS.How now! Where’s thy master? At my cousin Cressida’s?
BOY.No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.
EnterTroilus.
PANDARUS.O, here he comes. How now, how now?
TROILUS.Sirrah, walk off.
[ExitBoy.]
PANDARUS.Have you seen my cousin?
TROILUS.No, Pandarus. I stalk about her doorLike a strange soul upon the Stygian banksStaying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,And give me swift transportance to these fieldsWhere I may wallow in the lily bedsPropos’d for the deserver! O gentle Pandar,from Cupid’s shoulder pluck his painted wings,and fly with me to Cressid!
PANDARUS.Walk here i’ th’ orchard, I’ll bring her straight.
[Exit.]
TROILUS.I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.Th’imaginary relish is so sweetThat it enchants my sense; what will it beWhen that the wat’ry palate tastes indeedLove’s thrice-repured nectar? Death, I fear me;Sounding destruction; or some joy too fine,Too subtle-potent, tun’d too sharp in sweetness,For the capacity of my ruder powers.I fear it much; and I do fear besidesThat I shall lose distinction in my joys;As doth a battle, when they charge on heapsThe enemy flying.
Re-enterPandarus.
PANDARUS.She’s making her ready, she’ll come straight; you must be witty now. She does so blush, and fetches her wind so short, as if she were fray’d with a sprite. I’ll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain; she fetches her breath as short as a new-ta’en sparrow.
[Exit.]
TROILUS.Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom.My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse,And all my powers do their bestowing lose,Like vassalage at unawares encount’ringThe eye of majesty.
Re-enterPandaruswithCressida.
PANDARUS.Come, come, what need you blush? Shame’s a baby. Here she is now; swear the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me.—What, are you gone again? You must be watch’d ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways; and you draw backward, we’ll put you i’ th’ fills. Why do you not speak to her? Come, draw this curtain and let’s see your picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! And ’twere dark, you’d close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. How now, a kiss in fee-farm! Build there, carpenter; the air is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i’ th’ river. Go to, go to.
TROILUS.You have bereft me of all words, lady.
PANDARUS.Words pay no debts, give her deeds; but she’ll bereave you o’ th’ deeds too, if she call your activity in question. What, billing again? Here’s ‘In witness whereof the parties interchangeably.’ Come in, come in; I’ll go get a fire.
[Exit.]
CRESSIDA.Will you walk in, my lord?
TROILUS.O Cressid, how often have I wish’d me thus!
CRESSIDA.Wish’d, my lord! The gods grant—O my lord!
TROILUS.What should they grant? What makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?
CRESSIDA.More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.
TROILUS.Fears make devils of cherubins; they never see truly.
CRESSIDA.Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear. To fear the worst oft cures the worse.
TROILUS.O, let my lady apprehend no fear! In all Cupid’s pageant there is presented no monster.
CRESSIDA.Nor nothing monstrous neither?
TROILUS.Nothing, but our undertakings when we vow to weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our mistress to devise imposition enough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed. This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the will is infinite, and the execution confin’d; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to limit.
CRESSIDA.They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one. They that have the voice of lions and the act of hares, are they not monsters?
TROILUS.Are there such? Such are not we. Praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go bare till merit crown it. No perfection in reversion shall have a praise in present. We will not name desert before his birth; and, being born, his addition shall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst shall be a mock for his truth; and what truth can speak truest not truer than Troilus.
CRESSIDA.Will you walk in, my lord?
Re-enterPandarus.
PANDARUS.What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?
CRESSIDA.Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.
PANDARUS.I thank you for that; if my lord get a boy of you, you’ll give him me. Be true to my lord; if he flinch, chide me for it.
TROILUS.You know now your hostages: your uncle’s word and my firm faith.
PANDARUS.Nay, I’ll give my word for her too: our kindred, though they be long ere they are wooed, they are constant being won; they are burs, I can tell you; they’ll stick where they are thrown.
CRESSIDA.Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart.Prince Troilus, I have lov’d you night and dayFor many weary months.
TROILUS.Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
CRESSIDA.Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord,With the first glance that ever—pardon me.If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.I love you now; but till now not so muchBut I might master it. In faith, I lie;My thoughts were like unbridled children, grownToo headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!Why have I blabb’d? Who shall be true to us,When we are so unsecret to ourselves?But, though I lov’d you well, I woo’d you not;And yet, good faith, I wish’d myself a man,Or that we women had men’s privilegeOf speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,For in this rapture I shall surely speakThe thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness drawsMy very soul of counsel. Stop my mouth.
TROILUS.And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.
PANDARUS.Pretty, i’ faith.
CRESSIDA.My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me;’Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss.I am asham’d. O heavens! what have I done?For this time will I take my leave, my lord.
TROILUS.Your leave, sweet Cressid!
PANDARUS.Leave! And you take leave till tomorrow morning—
CRESSIDA.Pray you, content you.
TROILUS.What offends you, lady?
CRESSIDA.Sir, mine own company.
TROILUS.You cannot shun yourself.
CRESSIDA.Let me go and try.I have a kind of self resides with you;But an unkind self, that itself will leaveTo be another’s fool. I would be gone.Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.
TROILUS.Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.
CRESSIDA.Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love;And fell so roundly to a large confessionTo angle for your thoughts; but you are wise—Or else you love not; for to be wise and loveExceeds man’s might; that dwells with gods above.
TROILUS.O that I thought it could be in a woman—As, if it can, I will presume in you—To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;To keep her constancy in plight and youth,Outliving beauty’s outward, with a mindThat doth renew swifter than blood decays!Or that persuasion could but thus convince meThat my integrity and truth to youMight be affronted with the match and weightOf such a winnowed purity in love.How were I then uplifted! But, alas,I am as true as truth’s simplicity,And simpler than the infancy of truth.
CRESSIDA.In that I’ll war with you.
TROILUS.O virtuous fight,When right with right wars who shall be most right!True swains in love shall in the world to comeApprove their truth by Troilus, when their rhymes,Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,Want similes, truth tir’d with iteration—As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,As iron to adamant, as earth to th’ centre—Yet, after all comparisons of truth,As truth’s authentic author to be cited,‘As true as Troilus’ shall crown up the verseAnd sanctify the numbers.
CRESSIDA.Prophet may you be!If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,When time is old and hath forgot itself,When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,And blind oblivion swallow’d cities up,And mighty states characterless are gratedTo dusty nothing—yet let memoryFrom false to false, among false maids in love,Upbraid my falsehood when th’ have said ‘As falseAs air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,As fox to lamb, or wolf to heifer’s calf,Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son’—Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,‘As false as Cressid.’
PANDARUS.Go to, a bargain made; seal it, seal it; I’ll be the witness. Here I hold your hand; here my cousin’s. If ever you prove false one to another, since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be call’d to the world’s end after my name—call them all Pandars; let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers between Pandars. Say ‘Amen.’
TROILUS.Amen.
CRESSIDA.Amen.
PANDARUS.Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber and a bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death. Away!
[ExeuntTroilusandCressida.]
And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here,Bed, chamber, pander, to provide this gear!
[Exit.]
Flourish. EnterAgamemnon, Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, Ajax, MenelausandCalchas.
CALCHAS.Now, Princes, for the service I have done,Th’advantage of the time prompts me aloudTo call for recompense. Appear it to your mindThat, through the sight I bear in things to come,I have abandon’d Troy, left my possession,Incurr’d a traitor’s name, expos’d myselfFrom certain and possess’d conveniencesTo doubtful fortunes, sequest’ring from me allThat time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,Made tame and most familiar to my nature;And here, to do you service, am becomeAs new into the world, strange, unacquainted—I do beseech you, as in way of taste,To give me now a little benefitOut of those many regist’red in promise,Which you say live to come in my behalf.
AGAMEMNON.What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? Make demand.
CALCHAS.You have a Trojan prisoner call’d Antenor,Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear.Oft have you—often have you thanks therefore—Desir’d my Cressid in right great exchange,Whom Troy hath still denied; but this Antenor,I know, is such a wrest in their affairsThat their negotiations all must slackWanting his manage; and they will almostGive us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,In change of him. Let him be sent, great Princes,And he shall buy my daughter; and her presenceShall quite strike off all service I have doneIn most accepted pain.
AGAMEMNON.Let Diomedes bear him,And bring us Cressid hither. Calchas shall haveWhat he requests of us. Good Diomed,Furnish you fairly for this interchange;Withal, bring word if Hector will tomorrowBe answer’d in his challenge. Ajax is ready.
DIOMEDES.This shall I undertake; and ’tis a burdenWhich I am proud to bear.
[ExeuntDiomedesandCalchas.]
[AchillesandPatroclusstand in their tent.]
ULYSSES.Achilles stands i’ th’entrance of his tent.Please it our general pass strangely by him,As if he were forgot; and, Princes all,Lay negligent and loose regard upon him.I will come last. ’Tis like he’ll question meWhy such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn’d on him.If so, I have derision med’cinableTo use between your strangeness and his pride,Which his own will shall have desire to drink.It may do good. Pride hath no other glassTo show itself but pride; for supple kneesFeed arrogance and are the proud man’s fees.
AGAMEMNON.We’ll execute your purpose, and put onA form of strangeness as we pass along.So do each lord; and either greet him not,Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him moreThan if not look’d on. I will lead the way.
ACHILLES.What comes the general to speak with me?You know my mind. I’ll fight no more ’gainst Troy.
AGAMEMNON.What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?
NESTOR.Would you, my lord, aught with the general?
ACHILLES.No.
NESTOR.Nothing, my lord.
AGAMEMNON.The better.
[ExeuntAgamemnonandNestor.]
ACHILLES.Good day, good day.
MENELAUS.How do you? How do you?
[Exit.]
ACHILLES.What, does the cuckold scorn me?
AJAX.How now, Patroclus?
ACHILLES.Good morrow, Ajax.
AJAX.Ha?
ACHILLES.Good morrow.
AJAX.Ay, and good next day too.
[Exit.]
ACHILLES.What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?
PATROCLUS.They pass by strangely. They were us’d to bend,To send their smiles before them to Achilles,To come as humbly as they us’d to creepTo holy altars.
ACHILLES.What, am I poor of late?’Tis certain, greatness, once fall’n out with fortune,Must fall out with men too. What the declin’d is,He shall as soon read in the eyes of othersAs feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,Show not their mealy wings but to the summer;And not a man for being simply manHath any honour, but honour for those honoursThat are without him, as place, riches, and favour,Prizes of accident, as oft as merit;Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,The love that lean’d on them as slippery too,Doth one pluck down another, and togetherDie in the fall. But ’tis not so with me:Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoyAt ample point all that I did possessSave these men’s looks; who do, methinks, find outSomething not worth in me such rich beholdingAs they have often given. Here is Ulysses.I’ll interrupt his reading.How now, Ulysses!
ULYSSES.Now, great Thetis’ son!
ACHILLES.What are you reading?
ULYSSES.A strange fellow hereWrites me that man—how dearly ever parted,How much in having, or without or in—Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;As when his virtues shining upon othersHeat them, and they retort that heat againTo the first giver.
ACHILLES.This is not strange, Ulysses.The beauty that is borne here in the faceThe bearer knows not, but commends itselfTo others’ eyes; nor doth the eye itself—That most pure spirit of sense—behold itself,Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposedSalutes each other with each other’s form;For speculation turns not to itselfTill it hath travell’d, and is mirror’d thereWhere it may see itself. This is not strange at all.
ULYSSES.I do not strain at the position—It is familiar—but at the author’s drift;Who, in his circumstance, expressly provesThat no man is the lord of anything,Though in and of him there be much consisting,Till he communicate his parts to others;Nor doth he of himself know them for aughtTill he behold them formed in the applauseWhere th’are extended; who, like an arch, reverb’rateThe voice again; or, like a gate of steelFronting the sun, receives and renders backHis figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this;And apprehended here immediatelyTh’unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there!A very horse that has he knows not what!Nature, what things there areMost abject in regard and dear in use!What things again most dear in the esteemAnd poor in worth! Now shall we see tomorrow—An act that very chance doth throw upon him—Ajax renown’d. O heavens, what some men do,While some men leave to do!How some men creep in skittish Fortune’s hall,Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!How one man eats into another’s pride,While pride is fasting in his wantonness!To see these Grecian lords!—why, even alreadyThey clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast,And great Troy shrieking.
ACHILLES.I do believe it; for they pass’d by meAs misers do by beggars, neither gave to meGood word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?
ULYSSES.Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,A great-siz’d monster of ingratitudes.Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour’dAs fast as they are made, forgot as soonAs done. Perseverance, dear my lord,Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hangQuite out of fashion, like a rusty mailIn monumental mock’ry. Take the instant way;For honour travels in a strait so narrow—Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path,For emulation hath a thousand sonsThat one by one pursue; if you give way,Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,Like to an ent’red tide they all rush byAnd leave you hindmost;Or, like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank,Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,O’er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present,Though less than yours in past, must o’ertop yours;For Time is like a fashionable host,That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’hand;And with his arms out-stretch’d, as he would fly,Grasps in the comer. The welcome ever smiles,And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seekRemuneration for the thing it was;For beauty, wit,High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,Love, friendship, charity, are subjects allTo envious and calumniating Time.One touch of nature makes the whole world kin—That all with one consent praise new-born gauds,Though they are made and moulded of things past,And give to dust that is a little giltMore laud than gilt o’er-dusted.The present eye praises the present object.Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax,Since things in motion sooner catch the eyeThan what stirs not. The cry went once on thee,And still it might, and yet it may again,If thou wouldst not entomb thyself aliveAnd case thy reputation in thy tent,Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of lateMade emulous missions ’mongst the gods themselves,And drave great Mars to faction.
ACHILLES.Of this my privacyI have strong reasons.
ULYSSES.But ’gainst your privacyThe reasons are more potent and heroical.’Tis known, Achilles, that you are in loveWith one of Priam’s daughters.
ACHILLES.Ha! known!
ULYSSES.Is that a wonder?The providence that’s in a watchful stateKnows almost every grain of Plutus’ gold;Finds bottom in th’uncomprehensive deeps;Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,Do thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.There is a mystery—with whom relationDurst never meddle—in the soul of state,Which hath an operation more divineThan breath or pen can give expressure to.All the commerce that you have had with TroyAs perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;And better would it fit Achilles muchTo throw down Hector than Polyxena.But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,When fame shall in our island sound her trump,And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing‘Great Hector’s sister did Achilles win;But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.’Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak.The fool slides o’er the ice that you should break.
[Exit.]
PATROCLUS.To this effect, Achilles, have I mov’d you.A woman impudent and mannish grownIs not more loath’d than an effeminate manIn time of action. I stand condemn’d for this;They think my little stomach to the warAnd your great love to me restrains you thus.Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton CupidShall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,And, like a dew-drop from the lion’s mane,Be shook to air.
ACHILLES.Shall Ajax fight with Hector?
PATROCLUS.Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.
ACHILLES.I see my reputation is at stake;My fame is shrewdly gor’d.
PATROCLUS.O, then, beware:Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves;Omission to do what is necessarySeals a commission to a blank of danger;And danger, like an ague, subtly taintsEven then when they sit idly in the sun.
ACHILLES.Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus.I’ll send the fool to Ajax, and desire himT’invite the Trojan lords, after the combat,To see us here unarm’d. I have a woman’s longing,An appetite that I am sick withal,To see great Hector in his weeds of peace;To talk with him, and to behold his visage,Even to my full of view.
EnterThersites.
A labour sav’d!
THERSITES.A wonder!
ACHILLES.What?
THERSITES.Ajax goes up and down the field asking for himself.
ACHILLES.How so?
THERSITES.He must fight singly tomorrow with Hector, and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he raves in saying nothing.
ACHILLES.How can that be?
THERSITES.Why, a’ stalks up and down like a peacock—a stride and a stand; ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning, bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say ‘There were wit in this head, and ’twould out’; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man’s undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i’ th’ combat, he’ll break’t himself in vainglory. He knows not me. I said ‘Good morrow, Ajax’; and he replies ‘Thanks, Agamemnon.’ What think you of this man that takes me for the general? He’s grown a very land fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may wear it on both sides, like leather jerkin.
ACHILLES.Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.
THERSITES.Who, I? Why, he’ll answer nobody; he professes not answering. Speaking is for beggars: he wears his tongue in’s arms. I will put on his presence. Let Patroclus make his demands to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax.
ACHILLES.To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarm’d to my tent; and to procure safe conduct for his person of the magnanimous and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honour’d Captain General of the Grecian army, Agamemnon. Do this.
PATROCLUS.Jove bless great Ajax!
THERSITES.Hum!
PATROCLUS.I come from the worthy Achilles—
THERSITES.Ha!
PATROCLUS.Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent—
THERSITES.Hum!
PATROCLUS.And to procure safe conduct from Agamemnon.
THERSITES.Agamemnon?
PATROCLUS.Ay, my lord.
THERSITES.Ha!
PATROCLUS.What you say to’t?
THERSITES.God buy you, with all my heart.
PATROCLUS.Your answer, sir.
THERSITES.If tomorrow be a fair day, by eleven of the clock it will go one way or other. Howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me.
PATROCLUS.Your answer, sir.
THERSITES.Fare ye well, with all my heart.
ACHILLES.Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?
THERSITES.No, but out of tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has knock’d out his brains, I know not; but, I am sure, none; unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.
ACHILLES.Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.
THERSITES.Let me bear another to his horse; for that’s the more capable creature.
ACHILLES.My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr’d;And I myself see not the bottom of it.
[ExeuntAchillesandPatroclus.]
THERSITES.Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it. I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance.
[Exit.]