Tro. For the love of all the gods, Let's leave the hermit Pity with our mother; And when we have our armors buckled on, The venomed vengeance ride upon our swords; Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth.' Hect. Fie, savage, fie! Tro. Hector, then 'tis wars. Hect. Troilus, I would not have you fight to-day. Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars 2 Their eyes o'ergalled with recourse of tears; Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM. Cas. Lay hold upon him, Priam; hold him fast: He is thy crutch; now, if thou lose thy stay, Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee, Fall all together. Pri. Come, Hector, come, go back. To tell thee that this day is ominous. Hect. Eneas is afield; And I do stand engaged to many Greeks, This morning to them. Pri. Ay, but thou shalt not go. Hect. I must not break my faith. You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir, 3 Let me not shame respect; but give me leave 1 Ruthful is rueful, woful; and ruth is mercy. 2 i. e. tears that continue to course each other down the face. To take that course by your consent and voice, And. Do not, dear father. Hect. Andromache, I am offended with you; Upon the love you bear me, get you in. [Exit ANDROMACHE. Tro. This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl Makes all these bodements. Cas. O farewell, dear Hector. Look, how thou diest! look, how thy eye turns pale! Look, how thy wounds do bleed at many vents! Hark, how Troy roars! how Hecuba cries out! How poor Andromache shrills her dolors forth! Behold! destruction, frenzy, and amazement, Like witless antics, one another meet, 1 And all cry-Hector! Hector's dead! O Hector! Cas. Farewell.-Yet, soft.-Hector, I take my leave; Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive. [Exit. Hect. You are amazed, my liege, at her exclaim. Go in, and cheer the town: we'll forth, and fight; Do deeds worth praise, and tell you them at night. Pri. Farewell; the gods with safety stand about thee! [Exeunt severally PRIAM and HECTOR. Alarums. Tro. They are at it; hark! I come to lose my arm, or win Proud Diomed, believe, my sleeve. AS TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other side, PANDARUS. Pan. Do you hear, my lord? do you hear? Tro. What now? Pan. Here's a letter from yon' poor girl. Tro. Let me read. 1 The same verb is used by Spenser. 2 The folio reads distraction. Pan. A whoreson phthisic, a whoreson, rascally phthisic so troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl; and what one thing, what another, that I shall leave you one o' these days. And I have a rheum in mine eyes too; and such an ache in my bones, that, unless a man were cursed,' I cannot tell what to think on't. What says she there? Tro. Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart; [Tearing the letter. The effect doth operate another way. Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together. But edifies another with her deeds. [Exeunt severally. SCENE IV. Between Troy and the Grecian Camp. Alarums: Excursions. Enter THERSITES. Ther. Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look on. That dissembling, abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy, doting, foolish young knave's sleeve of Troy there, in his helm. I would fain see them meet; that that same young Trojan ass, that loves the whore there, might send that Greekish, whoremasterly villain, with the sleeve, back to the dissembling, luxurious drab, on a sleeveless errand. O' the other side, the policy of those crafty, swearing rascals,2—that stale, old, mouse-eaten, dry cheese, Nestor; and that same dog-fox, Ulysses,-is not proved worth a blackberry.-They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles; and now is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to-day; whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion. Soft! here comes sleeve, and t'other. 1 That is, under the influence of a malediction. 2 Theobald proposes to read "sneering rascals." 3 To set up the authority of ignorance, and to declare that they will be governed by policy no longer. Enter DIOMEDES, TROILUS following. Tro. Fly not; for, shouldst thou take the river Styx, I would swim after. Dio. Thou dost miscall retire. I do not fly; but advantageous care Have at thee! Ther. Hold thy whore, Grecian!-now for thy whore, Trojan !-now the sleeve, now the sleeve! [Exeunt TROILUS and DIOMEDES, fighting. Enter HECTOR. Hect. What art thou, Greek? art thou for Hector's match? Art thou of blood, and honor ?1 Ther. No, no.-I am a rascal; a scurvy, railing knave; a very filthy rogue. Hect. I do believe thee;-live. [Exit. Ther. God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague break thy neck, for frighting me! What's become of the wenching rogues? I think they have swallowed one another; I would laugh at that miracle. Yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself. I'll seek them. SCENE V. The same. Enter DIOMEDES and a Servant. [Exit. Dio. Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus' horse; Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid: Fellow, commend my service to her beauty; Tell her, I have chastised the amorous Trojan, And am her knight by proof. 1 This, like several others in this play, is an idea taken from the ancient books of romantic chivalry, and even from the usage of the Poet's age. It appears from Segar's Honour, Military and Civil, folio, 1602, that a person of superior birth might not be challenged by an inferior, or if challenged might refuse combat. Serv. I go, my lord. Enter AGAMEMNON. Agam. Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamas And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam,1 Enter NESTOR. 4 Nest. Go, bear Patroclus' body to Achilles; That what he will, he does; and does so much, 1 i. e. his lance, like a weaver's beam. 2 Bruised, crushed. 3 "A mervayllous beaste that was called Sagittayre, that behynde the myddes was an horse, and to fore, a man: this beste was heery like an horse, and shotte well with a bowe: this beste made the Greekes sore aferde, and slewe many of them with his bowe.”—Destruction of Troy, by Caxton. 4 i. e. dispersed shoals. "A scull of fishes-examen vel agmen piscium" (Baret)—was also, in more ancient times, written "a scoole." |