William Shakespeare
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Troilus and Cressida (1602)
, Cressida, 1888" style="width: 100px; height: 131px; float: right;" class="PopBoxImageSmall" title="Click to magnify/shrink" onclick="Pop(this,50,'/');"/> PROLOGUE
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
- In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
- The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf'd,
- Have to the port of Athens sent their ships
- Fraught with the ministers and instruments
- Of cruel war. Sixty and nine that wore
- Their crownets regal from the Athenian bay
- Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
- To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
- The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,
- With wanton Paris sleeps—and that's the quarrel.
- To Tenedos they come,
- And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
- Their war-like fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains
- The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
- Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,
- Dardan, and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Troien,
- And Antenorides, with massy staples
- And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
- Sperr up the sons of Troy.
- Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits
- On one and other side, Troyan and Greek,
- Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come
- A prologue arm'd, but not in confidence
- Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited
- In like conditions as our argument,
- To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
- Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
- Beginning in the middle; starting thence away,
- To what may be digested in a play.
- Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are;
- Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.
ACT ONE
SCENE 1. Troy. Before PRIAM's palace.
[Enter TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS.]
TROILUS.
- Call here my varlet; I'll unarm again.
- Why should I war without the walls of Troy
- That find such cruel battle here within?
- Each Trojan that is master of his heart,
- Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.
PANDARUS.
- Will this gear ne'er be mended?
TROILUS.
- The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength,
- Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;
- But I am weaker than a woman's tear,
- Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
- Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
- And skilless as unpractis'd infancy.
PANDARUS.
- Well, I have told you enough of this; for my part, I'll not
- meddle nor make no further. He that will have a cake out of the
- wheat must tarry the grinding.
TROILUS.
- Have I not tarried?
PANDARUS.
- Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.
TROILUS.
- Have I not tarried?
PANDARUS.
- Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.
TROILUS.
- Still have I tarried.
PANDARUS.
- Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word 'hereafter' the
- kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and
- the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance
- to burn your lips.
TROILUS.
- Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,
- Doth lesser blench at suff'rance than I do.
- At Priam's royal table do I sit;
- And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,
- So, traitor! 'when she comes'! when she is thence?
PANDARUS.
- Well, she look'd yesternight fairer than ever I saw her
- look, or any woman else.
TROILUS.
- I was about to tell thee: when my heart,
- As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,
- Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
- I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,
- Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile.
- But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness
- Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.
PANDARUS.
- An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's, well,
- go to, there were no more comparison between the women. But, for
- my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it,
- praise her, but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as
- I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit; but—
TROILUS.
- O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,
- When I do tell thee there my hopes lie drown'd,
- Reply not in how many fathoms deep
- They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad
- In Cressid's love. Thou answer'st 'She is fair';
- Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart
- Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,
- Handlest in thy discourse. O! that her hand,
- In whose comparison all whites are ink
- Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure
- The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense
- Hard as the palm of ploughman! This thou tell'st me,
- As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her;
- But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
- Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
- The knife that made it.
PANDARUS.
- I speak no more than truth.
TROILUS.
- Thou dost not speak so much.
PANDARUS.
- Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is: if
- she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the
- mends in her own hands.
TROILUS.
- Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus!
PANDARUS.
- I have had my labour for my travail, ill thought on of
- her and ill thought on of you; gone between and between, but
- small thanks for my labour.
TROILUS.
- What! art thou angry, Pandarus? What! with me?
PANDARUS.
- Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as
- Helen. An she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday
- as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a
- blackamoor; 'tis all one to me.
TROILUS.
- Say I she is not fair?
PANDARUS.
- I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay
- behind her father. Let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her
- the next time I see her. For my part, I'll meddle nor make no
- more i' the matter.
TROILUS.
- Pandarus
PANDARUS.
- Not I.
TROILUS.
- Sweet Pandarus—
PANDARUS.
- Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all
- as I found it, and there an end.
[Exit PANDARUS. An alarum.]
TROILUS.
- Peace, you ungracious clamours! Peace, rude sounds!
- Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
- When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
- I cannot fight upon this argument;
- It is too starv'd a subject for my sword.
- But Pandarus, O gods! how do you plague me!
- I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
- And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo
- As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
- Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
- What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
- Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl;
- Between our Ilium and where she resides
- Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood;
- Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
- Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.
[Alarum. Enter AENEAS.]
AENEAS.
- How now, Prince Troilus! Wherefore not afield?
TROILUS.
- Because not there. This woman's answer sorts,
- For womanish it is to be from thence.
- What news, Aeneas, from the field to-day?
AENEAS.
- That Paris is returned home, and hurt.
TROILUS.
- By whom, Aeneas?
AENEAS.
- Troilus, by Menelaus.
TROILUS.
- Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a scar to scorn;
- Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn.
[Alarum.]
AENEAS.
- Hark what good sport is out of town to-day!
TROILUS.
- Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may.'
- But to the sport abroad. Are you bound thither?
AENEAS.
- In all swift haste.
TROILUS.
- Come, go we then together. [Exeunt.]
- [Enter CRESSIDA and her man ALEXANDER.]
CRESSIDA.
- Who were those went by?
ALEXANDER.
- Queen Hecuba and Helen.
CRESSIDA.
- And whither go they?
ALEXANDER.
- Up to the eastern tower,
- Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
- To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
- Is as a virtue fix'd, to-day was mov'd.
- He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;
- And, like as there were husbandry in war,
- Before the sun rose he was harness'd light,
- And to the field goes he; where every flower
- Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw
- In Hector's wrath.
CRESSIDA.
- What was his cause of anger?
ALEXANDER.
- The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks
- A lord of Troyan blood, nephew to Hector;
- They call him Ajax.
CRESSIDA.
- Good; and what of him?
ALEXANDER.
- They say he is a very man per se,
- And stands alone.
CRESSIDA.
- So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.
ALEXANDER.
- This man, lady, hath robb'd many beasts of their particular
- additions: he is as valiant as a lion, churlish as the bear, slow
- as the elephant—a man into whom nature hath so crowded
- humours that his valour is crush'd into folly, his folly sauced
- with discretion. There is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a
- glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of
- it; he is melancholy without cause and merry against the hair; he
- hath the joints of every thing; but everything so out of joint
- that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind
- Argus, all eyes and no sight.
CRESSIDA.
- But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector
- angry?
ALEXANDER.
- They say he yesterday cop'd Hector in the battle and
- struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since
- kept Hector fasting and waking.
[Enter PANDARUS.]
CRESSIDA.
- Who comes here?
ALEXANDER.
- Madam, your uncle Pandarus.
CRESSIDA.
- Hector's a gallant man.
ALEXANDER.
- As may be in the world, lady.
PANDARUS.
- What's that? What's that?
CRESSIDA.
- Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.
PANDARUS.
- Good morrow, cousin Cressid. What do you talk of?—Good
- morrow, Alexander.—How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?
CRESSIDA.
- This morning, uncle.
PANDARUS.
- What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector arm'd
- and gone ere you came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?
CRESSIDA.
- Hector was gone; but Helen was not up.
PANDARUS.
- E'en so. Hector was stirring early.
CRESSIDA.
- That were we talking of, and of his anger.
PANDARUS.
- Was he angry?
CRESSIDA.
- So he says here.
PANDARUS.
- True, he was so; I know the cause too; he'll lay about
- him today, I can tell them that. And there's Troilus will not
- come far behind him; let them take heed of Troilus, I can tell
- them that too.
CRESSIDA.
- What, is he angry too?
PANDARUS.
- Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.
CRESSIDA.
- O Jupiter! there's no comparison.
PANDARUS.
- What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man
- if you see him?
CRESSIDA.
- Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him.
PANDARUS.
- Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.
CRESSIDA.
- Then you say as I say, for I am sure he is not Hector.
PANDARUS.
- No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees.
CRESSIDA.
- 'Tis just to each of them: he is himself.
PANDARUS.
- Himself! Alas, poor Troilus! I would he were!
CRESSIDA.
- So he is.
PANDARUS.
- Condition I had gone barefoot to India.
CRESSIDA.
- He is not Hector.
PANDARUS.
- Himself! no, he's not himself. Would 'a were himself!
- Well, the gods are above; time must friend or end. Well, Troilus,
- well! I would my heart were in her body! No, Hector is not a
- better man than Troilus.
CRESSIDA.
- Excuse me.
PANDARUS.
- He is elder.
CRESSIDA.
- Pardon me, pardon me.
PANDARUS.
- Th' other's not come to't; you shall tell me another tale
- when th' other's come to't. Hector shall not have his wit this
- year.
CRESSIDA.
- He shall not need it if he have his own.
ANDARUS.
- Nor his qualities.
CRESSIDA.
- No matter.
PANDARUS.
- Nor his beauty.
CRESSIDA.
- 'Twould not become him: his own's better.
PANDARUS.
- You have no judgment, niece. Helen herself swore th'
- other day that Troilus, for a brown favour, for so 'tis, I must
- confess—not brown neither—
CRESSIDA.
- No, but brown.
PANDARUS.
- Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.
CRESSIDA.
- To say the truth, true and not true.
PANDARUS.
- She prais'd his complexion above Paris.
CRESSIDA.
- Why, Paris hath colour enough.
PANDARUS.
- So he has.
CRESSIDA.
- Then Troilus should have too much. If she prais'd him
- above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour
- enough, and the other higher, is too flaming praise for a good
- complexion. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended
- Troilus for a copper nose.
PANDARUS.
- I swear to you I think Helen loves him better than Paris.
CRESSIDA.
- Then she's a merry Greek indeed.
PANDARUS.
- Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th' other day
- into the compass'd window—and you know he has not past three or
- four hairs on his chin—
CRESSIDA.
- Indeed a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his
- particulars therein to a total.
PANDARUS.
- Why, he is very young, and yet will he within three pound
- lift as much as his brother Hector.
CRESSIDA.
- Is he so young a man and so old a lifter?
PANDARUS.
- But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she came and
- puts me her white hand to his cloven chin—
CRESSIDA.
- Juno have mercy! How came it cloven?
PANDARUS.
- Why, you know, 'tis dimpled. I think his smiling becomes
- him better than any man in all Phrygia.
CRESSIDA.
- O, he smiles valiantly!
PANDARUS.
- Does he not?
CRESSIDA.
- O yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn!
PANDARUS.
- Why, go to, then! But to prove to you that Helen loves
- Troilus—
CRESSIDA.
- Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll prove it so.
PANDARUS.
- Troilus! Why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an
- addle egg.
CRESSIDA.
- If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle
- head, you would eat chickens i' th' shell.
PANDARUS.
- I cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his
- chin. Indeed, she has a marvell's white hand, I must needs
- confess.
CRESSIDA.
- Without the rack.
PANDARUS.
- And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.
CRESSIDA.
- Alas, poor chin! Many a wart is richer.
PANDARUS.
- But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laugh'd that
- her eyes ran o'er.
CRESSIDA.
- With millstones.
PANDARUS.
- And Cassandra laugh'd.
CRESSIDA.
- But there was a more temperate fire under the pot of her
- eyes. Did her eyes run o'er too?
PANDARUS.
- And Hector laugh'd.
CRESSIDA.
- At what was all this laughing?
PANDARUS.
- Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus'
- chin.
CRESSIDA.
- An't had been a green hair I should have laugh'd too.
PANDARUS.
- They laugh'd not so much at the hair as at his pretty
- answer.
CRESSIDA.
- What was his answer?
PANDARUS.
- Quoth she 'Here's but two and fifty hairs on your chin,
- and one of them is white.'
CRESSIDA.
- This is her question.
PANDARUS.
- That's true; make no question of that. 'Two and fifty
- hairs,' quoth he 'and one white. That white hair is my father,
- and all the rest are his sons.' 'Jupiter!' quoth she 'which of
- these hairs is Paris my husband?' 'The forked one,' quoth he,
- 'pluck't out and give it him.' But there was such laughing! and
- Helen so blush'd, and Paris so chaf'd; and all the rest so
- laugh'd that it pass'd.
CRESSIDA.
- So let it now; for it has been a great while going by.
PANDARUS.
- Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday; think on't.
CRESSIDA.
- So I do.
PANDARUS.
- I'll be sworn 'tis true; he will weep you, and 'twere a
- man born in April.
CRESSIDA.
- And I'll spring up in his tears, an 'twere a nettle
- against May.
[Sound a retreat.]
PANDARUS.
- Hark! they are coming from the field. Shall we stand up
- here and see them as they pass toward Ilium? Good niece, do,
- sweet niece Cressida.
CRESSIDA.
- At your pleasure.
PANDARUS.
- Here, here, here's an excellent place; here we may see
- most bravely. I'll tell you them all by their names as they pass
- by; but mark Troilus above the rest.
[AENEAS passes.]
CRESSIDA.
- Speak not so loud.
PANDARUS.
- That's Aeneas. Is not that a brave man? He's one of the
- flowers of Troy, I can tell you. But mark Troilus; you shall see
- anon.
[ANTENOR passes.]
CRESSIDA.
- Who's that?
PANDARUS.
- That's Antenor. He has a shrewd wit, I can tell you; and
- he's a man good enough; he's one o' th' soundest judgments in
- Troy, whosoever, and a proper man of person. When comes Troilus?
- I'll show you Troilus anon. If he see me, you shall see him nod
- at me.
CRESSIDA.
- Will he give you the nod?
PANDARUS.
- You shall see.
CRESSIDA.
- If he do, the rich shall have more.
[HECTOR passes.]
PANDARUS.
- That's Hector, that, that, look you, that; there's a
- fellow! Go thy way, Hector! There's a brave man, niece. O brave
- Hector! Look how he looks. There's a countenance! Is't not a
- brave man?
CRESSIDA.
- O, a brave man!
PANDARUS.
- Is 'a not? It does a man's heart good. Look you what
- hacks are on his helmet! Look you yonder, do you see? Look you
- there. There's no jesting; there's laying on; take't off who
- will, as they say. There be hacks.
CRESSIDA.
- Be those with swords?
PANDARUS.
- Swords! anything, he cares not; an the devil come to him,
- it's all one. By God's lid, it does one's heart good. Yonder
- comes Paris, yonder comes Paris.
[PARIS passes.]
- Look ye yonder, niece; is't not a gallant man too, is't not? Why,
- this is brave now. Who said he came hurt home to-day? He's not
- hurt. Why, this will do Helen's heart good now, ha! Would I could
- see Troilus now! You shall see Troilus anon.
[HELENUS passes.]
CRESSIDA.
- Who's that?
PANDARUS.
- That's Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That's
- Helenus. I think he went not forth to-day. That's Helenus.
CRESSIDA.
- Can Helenus fight, uncle?
PANDARUS.
- Helenus! no. Yes, he'll fight indifferent well. I marvel
- where Troilus is. Hark! do you not hear the people cry 'Troilus'?
- Helenus is a priest.
CRESSIDA.
- What sneaking fellow comes yonder?
[TROILUS passes.]
PANDARUS.
- Where? yonder? That's Deiphobus. 'Tis Troilus. There's a
- man, niece. Hem! Brave Troilus, the prince of chivalry!
CRESSIDA.
- Peace, for shame, peace!
PANDARUS.
- Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him,
- niece; look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more
- hack'd than Hector's; and how he looks, and how he goes! O
- admirable youth! he never saw three and twenty. Go thy way,
- Troilus, go thy way. Had I a sister were a grace or a daughter a
- goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris
- is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an
- eye to boot.
CRESSIDA.
- Here comes more.
[Common soldiers pass.]
PANDARUS.
- Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran!
- porridge after meat! I could live and die in the eyes of Troilus.
- Ne'er look, ne'er look; the eagles are gone. Crows and daws,
- crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus than
- Agamemnon and all Greece.
CRESSIDA.
- There is amongst the Greeks Achilles, a better man than
- Troilus.
PANDARUS.
- Achilles? A drayman, a porter, a very camel!
CRESSIDA.
- Well, well.
PANDARUS.
- Well, well! Why, have you any discretion? Have you any
- eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good
- shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth,
- liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man?
CRESSIDA.
- Ay, a minc'd man; and then to be bak'd with no date in
- the pie, for then the man's date is out.
PANDARUS.
- You are such a woman! A man knows not at what ward you
- lie.
CRESSIDA.
- Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend
- my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to
- defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these; and at all these
- wards I lie at, at a thousand watches.
PANDARUS.
- Say one of your watches.
CRESSIDA.
- Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the
- chiefest of them too. If I cannot ward what I would not have hit,
- I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell
- past hiding, and then it's past watching
PANDARUS.
- You are such another!
[Enter TROILUS' BOY.]
BOY.
- Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.
PANDARUS.
- Where?
BOY.
- At your own house; there he unarms him.
PANDARUS.
- Good boy, tell him I come.Exit Boy
- I doubt he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece.
CRESSIDA.
- Adieu, uncle.
PANDARUS.
- I will be with you, niece, by and by.
CRESSIDA.
- To bring, uncle.
PANDARUS.
- Ay, a token from Troilus.
CRESSIDA.
- By the same token, you are a bawd.
[Exit PANDARUS.]
- Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice,
- He offers in another's enterprise;
- But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see
- Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be,
- Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:
- Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.
- That she belov'd knows nought that knows not this:
- Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is.
- That she was never yet that ever knew
- Love got so sweet as when desire did sue;
- Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:
- Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech.
- Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear,
- Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.
[Exit.]
SCENE 3. The Grecian camp. Before AGAMEMNON's tent.
[Sennet. Enter AGAMEMNON, NESTOR, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, MENELAUS, and others.]
AGAMEMNON.
- Princes,
- What grief hath set these jaundies o'er your cheeks?
- The ample proposition that hope makes
- In all designs begun on earth below
- Fails in the promis'd largeness; checks and disasters
- Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd,
- As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
- Infects the sound pine, and diverts his grain
- Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
- Nor, princes, is it matter new to us
- That we come short of our suppose so far
- That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand;
- Sith every action that hath gone before,
- Whereof we have record, trial did draw
- Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
- And that unbodied figure of the thought
- That gave't surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
- Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works
- And call them shames, which are, indeed, nought else
- But the protractive trials of great Jove
- To find persistive constancy in men;
- The fineness of which metal is not found
- In fortune's love? For then the bold and coward,
- The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
- The hard and soft, seem all affin'd and kin.
- But in the wind and tempest of her frown
- Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
- Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
- And what hath mass or matter by itself
- Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.
NESTOR.
- With due observance of thy godlike seat,
- Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply
- Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance
- Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth,
- How many shallow bauble boats dare sail
- Upon her patient breast, making their way
- With those of nobler bulk!
- But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
- The gentle Thetis, and anon behold
- The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cut,
- Bounding between the two moist elements
- Like Perseus' horse. Where's then the saucy boat,
- Whose weak untimber'd sides but even now
- Co-rivall'd greatness? Either to harbour fled
- Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so
- Doth valour's show and valour's worth divide
- In storms of fortune; for in her ray and brightness
- The herd hath more annoyance by the breeze
- Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind
- Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,
- And flies fled under shade—why, then the thing of courage
- As rous'd with rage, with rage doth sympathise,
- And with an accent tun'd in self-same key
- Retorts to chiding fortune.
ULYSSES.
- Agamemnon,
- Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,
- Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit
- In whom the tempers and the minds of all
- Should be shut up—hear what Ulysses speaks.
- Besides the applause and approbation
- The which,
[To AGAMEMNON]
- most mighty, for thy place and sway,
[To NESTOR]
- And, thou most reverend, for thy stretch'd-out life,
- I give to both your speeches—which were such
- As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece
- Should hold up high in brass; and such again
- As venerable Nestor, hatch'd in silver,
- Should with a bond of air, strong as the axle-tree
- On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears
- To his experienc'd tongue—yet let it please both,
- Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.
AGAMEMNON.
- Speak, Prince of Ithaca; and be't of less expect
- That matter needless, of importless burden,
- Divide thy lips than we are confident,
- When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws,
- We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.
ULYSSES.
- Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
- And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master,
- But for these instances:
- The specialty of rule hath been neglected;
- And look how many Grecian tents do stand
- Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
- When that the general is not like the hive,
- To whom the foragers shall all repair,
- What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
- Th' unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
- The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,
- Observe degree, priority, and place,
- Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
- Office, and custom, in all line of order;
- And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
- In noble eminence enthron'd and spher'd
- Amidst the other, whose med'cinable eye
- Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
- And posts, like the commandment of a king,
- Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets
- In evil mixture to disorder wander,
- What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,
- What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,
- Commotion in the winds! Frights, changes, horrors,
- Divert and crack, rend and deracinate,
- The unity and married calm of states
- Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shak'd,
- Which is the ladder of all high designs,
- The enterprise is sick! How could communities,
- Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
- Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
- The primogenity and due of birth,
- Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
- But by degree, stand in authentic place?
- Take but degree away, untune that string,
- And hark what discord follows! Each thing melts
- In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
- Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
- And make a sop of all this solid globe;
- Strength should be lord of imbecility,
- And the rude son should strike his father dead;
- Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong—
- Between whose endless jar justice resides—
- Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
- Then everything includes itself in power,
- Power into will, will into appetite;
- And appetite, an universal wolf,
- So doubly seconded with will and power,
- Must make perforce an universal prey,
- And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
- This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
- Follows the choking.
- And this neglection of degree it is
- That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
- It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd
- By him one step below, he by the next,
- That next by him beneath; so ever step,
- Exampl'd by the first pace that is sick
- Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
- Of pale and bloodless emulation.
- And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
- Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
- Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.
NESTOR.
- Most wisely hath Ulysses here discover'd
- The fever whereof all our power is sick.
AGAMEMNON.
- The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses,
- What is the remedy?
ULYSSES.
- The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns
- The sinew and the forehand of our host,
- Having his ear full of his airy fame,
- Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent
- Lies mocking our designs; with him Patroclus
- Upon a lazy bed the livelong day
- Breaks scurril jests;
- And with ridiculous and awkward action—
- Which, slanderer, he imitation calls—
- He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,
- Thy topless deputation he puts on;
- And like a strutting player whose conceit
- Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
- To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
- 'Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage—
- Such to-be-pitied and o'er-wrested seeming
- He acts thy greatness in; and when he speaks
- 'Tis like a chime a-mending; with terms unsquar'd,
- Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp'd,
- Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff
- The large Achilles, on his press'd bed lolling,
- From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;
- Cries 'Excellent! 'tis Agamemnon just.
- Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,
- As he being drest to some oration.'
- That's done—as near as the extremest ends
- Of parallels, as like Vulcan and his wife;
- Yet god Achilles still cries 'Excellent!
- 'Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus,
- Arming to answer in a night alarm.'
- And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age
- Must be the scene of mirth: to cough and spit
- And, with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget,
- Shake in and out the rivet. And at this sport
- Sir Valour dies; cries 'O, enough, Patroclus;
- Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all
- In pleasure of my spleen.' And in this fashion
- All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,
- Severals and generals of grace exact,
- Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,
- Excitements to the field or speech for truce,
- Success or loss, what is or is not, serves
- As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.
NESTOR.
- And in the imitation of these twain—
- Who, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns
- With an imperial voice—many are infect.
- Ajax is grown self-will'd and bears his head
- In such a rein, in full as proud a place
- As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him;
- Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war
- Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites,
- A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint,
- To match us in comparisons with dirt,
- To weaken and discredit our exposure,
- How rank soever rounded in with danger.
ULYSSES.
- They tax our policy and call it cowardice,
- Count wisdom as no member of the war,
- Forestall prescience, and esteem no act
- But that of hand. The still and mental parts
- That do contrive how many hands shall strike
- When fitness calls them on, and know, by measure
- Of their observant toil, the enemies' weight—
- Why, this hath not a finger's dignity:
- They call this bed-work, mapp'ry, closet-war;
- So that the ram that batters down the wall,
- For the great swinge and rudeness of his poise,
- They place before his hand that made the engine,
- Or those that with the fineness of their souls
- By reason guide his execution.
NESTOR.
- Let this be granted, and Achilles' horse
- Makes many Thetis' sons.
[Tucket.]
AGAMEMNON.
- What trumpet? Look, Menelaus.
MENELAUS.
- From Troy.
[Enter AENEAS.]
AGAMEMNON.
- What would you fore our tent?
AENEAS.
- Is this great Agamemnon's tent, I pray you?
AGAMEMNON.
- Even this.
AENEAS.
- May one that is a herald and a prince
- Do a fair message to his kingly eyes?
AGAMEMNON.
- With surety stronger than Achilles' an
- Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice
- Call Agamemnon head and general.
AENEAS.
- Fair leave and large security. How may
- A stranger to those most imperial looks
- Know them from eyes of other mortals?
AGAMEMNON.
- How?
AENEAS.
- Ay;
- I ask, that I might waken reverence,
- And bid the cheek be ready with a blush
- Modest as Morning when she coldly eyes
- The youthful Phoebus.
- Which is that god in office, guiding men?
- Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?
AGAMEMNON.
- This Troyan scorns us, or the men of Troy
- Are ceremonious courtiers.
AENEAS.
- Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm'd,
- As bending angels; that's their fame in peace.
- But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls,
- Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and, Jove's accord,
- Nothing so full of heart. But peace, Aeneas,
- Peace, Troyan; lay thy finger on thy lips.
- The worthiness of praise distains his worth,
- If that the prais'd himself bring the praise forth;
- But what the repining enemy commends,
- That breath fame blows; that praise, sole pure, transcends.
AGAMEMNON.
- Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Aeneas?
AENEAS.
- Ay, Greek, that is my name.
AGAMEMNON.
- What's your affair, I pray you?
AENEAS.
- Sir, pardon; 'tis for Agamemnon's ears.
AGAME
- He hears nought privately that comes from Troy.
AENEAS.
- Nor I from Troy come not to whisper with him;
- I bring a trumpet to awake his ear,
- To set his sense on the attentive bent,
- And then to speak.
AGAMEMNON.
- Speak frankly as the wind;
- It is not Agamemnon's sleeping hour.
- That thou shalt know, Troyan, he is awake,
- He tells thee so himself.
AENEAS.
- Trumpet, blow loud,
- Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;
- And every Greek of mettle, let him know
- What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud.
[Sound trumpet.]
- We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy
- A prince called Hector-Priam is his father—
- Who in this dull and long-continued truce
- Is resty grown; he bade me take a trumpet
- And to this purpose speak: Kings, princes, lords!
- If there be one among the fair'st of Greece
- That holds his honour higher than his ease,
- That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril,
- That knows his valour and knows not his fear,
- That loves his mistress more than in confession
- With truant vows to her own lips he loves,
- And dare avow her beauty and her worth
- In other arms than hers-to him this challenge.
- Hector, in view of Troyans and of Greeks,
- Shall make it good or do his best to do it:
- He hath a lady wiser, fairer, truer,
- Than ever Greek did couple in his arms;
- And will to-morrow with his trumpet call
- Mid-way between your tents and walls of Troy
- To rouse a Grecian that is true in love.
- If any come, Hector shall honour him;
- If none, he'll say in Troy, when he retires,
- The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth
- The splinter of a lance. Even so much.
AGAMEMNON.
- This shall be told our lovers, Lord Aeneas.
- If none of them have soul in such a kind,
- We left them all at home. But we are soldiers;
- And may that soldier a mere recreant prove
- That means not, hath not, or is not in love.
- If then one is, or hath, or means to be,
- That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he.
NESTOR.
- Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man
- When Hector's grandsire suck'd. He is old now;
- But if there be not in our Grecian mould
- One noble man that hath one spark of fire
- To answer for his love, tell him from me
- I'll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver,
- And in my vantbrace put this wither'd brawn,
- And, meeting him, will tell him that my lady
- Was fairer than his grandame, and as chaste
- As may be in the world. His youth in flood,
- I'll prove this truth with my three drops of blood.
AENEAS.
- Now heavens forfend such scarcity of youth!
ULYSSES.
- Amen.
AGAMEMNON.
- Fair Lord Aeneas, let me touch your hand;
- To our pavilion shall I lead you, first.
- Achilles shall have word of this intent;
- So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent.
- Yourself shall feast with us before you go,
- And find the welcome of a noble foe.
[Exeunt all but ULYSSES and NESTOR.]
ULYSSES.
- Nestor!
NESTOR.
- What says Ulysses?
ULYSSES.
- I have a young conception in my brain;
- Be you my time to bring it to some shape.
NESTOR.
- What is't?
ULYSSES.
- This 'tis:
- Blunt wedges rive hard knots. The seeded pride
- That hath to this maturity blown up
- In rank Achilles must or now be cropp'd
- Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil
- To overbulk us all.
NESTOR.
- Well, and how?
ULYSSES.
- This challenge that the gallant Hector sends,
- However it is spread in general name,
- Relates in purpose only to Achilles.
NESTOR.
- True. The purpose is perspicuous even as substance
- Whose grossness little characters sum up;
- And, in the publication, make no strain
- But that Achilles, were his brain as barren
- As banks of Libya—though, Apollo knows,
- 'Tis dry enough—will with great speed of judgment,
- Ay, with celerity, find Hector's purpose
- Pointing on him.
ULYSSES.
- And wake him to the answer, think you?
NESTOR.
- Why, 'tis most meet. Who may you else oppose
- That can from Hector bring those honours off,
- If not Achilles? Though 't be a sportful combat,
- Yet in this trial much opinion dwells
- For here the Troyans taste our dear'st repute
- With their fin'st palate; and trust to me, Ulysses,
- Our imputation shall be oddly pois'd
- In this vile action; for the success,
- Although particular, shall give a scantling
- Of good or bad unto the general;
- And in such indexes, although small pricks
- To their subsequent volumes, there is seen
- The baby figure of the giant mas
- Of things to come at large. It is suppos'd
- He that meets Hector issues from our choice;
- And choice, being mutual act of all our souls,
- Makes merit her election, and doth boil,
- As 'twere from forth us all, a man distill'd
- Out of our virtues; who miscarrying,
- What heart receives from hence a conquering part,
- To steel a strong opinion to themselves?
- Which entertain'd, limbs are his instruments,
- In no less working than are swords and bows
- Directive by the limbs.
ULYSSES.
- Give pardon to my speech.
- Therefore 'tis meet Achilles meet not Hector.
- Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares
- And think perchance they'll sell; if not, the lustre
- Of the better yet to show shall show the better,
- By showing the worst first. Do not consent
- That ever Hector and Achilles meet;
- For both our honour and our shame in this
- Are dogg'd with two strange followers.
NESTOR.
- I see them not with my old eyes. What are they?
ULYSSES.
- What glory our Achilles shares from Hector,
- Were he not proud, we all should wear with him;
- But he already is too insolent;
- And it were better parch in Afric sun
- Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes,
- Should he scape Hector fair. If he were foil'd,
- Why, then we do our main opinion crush
- In taint of our best man. No, make a lott'ry;
- And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw
- The sort to fight with Hector. Among ourselves
- Give him allowance for the better man;
- For that will physic the great Myrmidon,
- Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall
- His crest, that prouder than blue Iris bends.
- If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off,
- We'll dress him up in voices; if he fail,
- Yet go we under our opinion still
- That we have better men. But, hit or miss,
- Our project's life this shape of sense assumes—
- Ajax employ'd plucks down Achilles' plumes.
NESTOR.
- Now, Ulysses, I begin to relish thy advice;
- And I will give a taste thereof forthwith
- To Agamemnon. Go we to him straight.
- Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone
- Must tarre the mastiffs on, as 'twere their bone.
[Exeunt.]