Hect.

We'll answer it; The issue is embracement:-Ajax, farewell. Ajax. If I might in entreaties find success, (As seld1 I have the chance,) I would desire My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.

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

Hect. Eneas, call my brother Troilus to me :
And signify this loving interview
To the expecters of our Trojan part;
Desire them home.--Give me thy hand, my cousin;
I will go eat with thee, and see your knights.
Ajax. Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.
Hect. The worthiest of them tell me name by

name;

But for Achilles, my own searching eyes
Shall find him by his large and portly size.

Agam. Worthy of arms! as welcome as to one
That would be rid of such an enemy;
But that's no welcome: Understand more clear,
What's past, and what's to come, is strew'd with
husks,

And formless ruin of oblivion;

But in this extant moment, faith and troth,
Strain'd purely from all hollow bias-drawing,
Bids thee, with most divine integrity,
From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.
Hect. I thank thee, most imperious? Agamemnon.
Agam. My well-fam'd lord of Troy, no less to you.
[To Troilus.
Men. Let me confirm my princely brother's
greeting;-
You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.
Hect. Whom must we answer?

Men.
The noble Menelaus.
Hect. O you, my lord? by Mars his gauntlet,
thanks!

Mock not, that I affect the untraded3 oath;
Your quondam wife swears still by Venus' glove:
She's well, but bade me not commend her to you.
Men. Name her not now, sir; she's a deadly
theme.

Hect. O, pardon; I offend.

Nest. I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft,||
Labouring for destiny, make cruel way
Through ranks of Greekish youth: and I have seen
thee,

ne. 'Tis the old Nestor.

Hect. Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle,
That hast so long walk'd hand in hand with time:
Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee.

Nest. I would, my arms could match thee in
contention,
As they contend with thee in courtesy.
Hect. I would they could.

Nest. Ha!

By this white beard, I'd fight with thee to-morrow.
Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time---
Ulyss. I wonder now how yonder city stands,
When we have here her base and pillar by us.

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

Ulyss. Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue :
My prophecy is but half his journey yet;
For yonder walls, that pertly front your town,
Yon towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,
Must kiss their own feet.

Hect.

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

Ulyss.

(1) Seldom. (2) Imperial.

(3) Singular, not common. (4) Heretofore. (5) Fallen. (6) Laomedon. `(7) Observed.

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

Achil I shall forestall thee, lord Ulysses, thou!--
Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee;
I have with exact view perus'd thee, Hector,
And quoted joint by joint.

Is this Achilles?

Hect.

Achil. I am Achilles.
Hect. Stand fair, I pray thee: let me look on thee.
Achil. Behold thy fill.

Hect.
Nay, I have done already.
Achil. Thou art too brief; I will the second time,
As I could buy thee, view thee limb by limb.
Hect. O, like a book of sport thou'lt read me o'er;
But there's more in me than thou understand'st.
Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?
Achil. Tell me, you heavens, in which part of
his body

As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed,
Despising many forfeits and subduements,
When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i'the air, Where thou wilt hit me dead?
Not letting it decline on the declin'd;5
That I have said to some my standers-by,
Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!
And I have seen thee pause, and take thy breath,
When that a ring of Greeks have hemm'd thee in,
Like an Olympian wrestling: This have I seen;
But this thy countenance, still lock'd in steel,
I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire,6
And once fought with him: he was a soldier good;
But, by great Mars, the captain of us all,
Never like thee: Let an old man embrace thee:
And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.

Shall I destroy him; whether there, there, or there?
That I may give the local wound a name ;
And make distinct the very breach whereout
Hector's great spirit flew Answer me, heavens !
Hect. It would discredit the bless'd gods, proud

man,

To answer such a question: Stand again:
Think'st thou to catch my life so pleasantly,
As to prenominates in nice conjecture,

Achil.
I tell thee, yea.
Hect. Wert thou an oracle to tell me so,
I'd not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well ;
For I'll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there;
But, by the forge that stithied9 Mars his helm,
I'll kill thee every where, yea, o'er and o'er.-
You wisest Grecians pardon me this brag,
His insolence draws folly from my lips;
But I'll endeavour deeds to match these words,
Or may I never-

Ajax.
Do not chafe thee, cousin ;-
And you, Achilles, let these threats alone,
Till accident, or purpose, bring you to't:
You may have every day enough of Hector,
If you have stomach;10 the general state, I fear,
Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.

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

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

'To-night, all friends. Hect.

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

There in the full convivel we: afterwards,
As Hector's leisure and your bounties shall
Concur together, severally entreat him.--
Beat loud the taborines,2 let the trumpets blow,
That this great soldier may his welcome know.
[Exeunt all but Troilus and Ulysses.
Tro. My lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,
In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?

Ulyss. At Menelaus' tent, most princely Troilus:
There Diomed doth feast with him to-night;
Who neither looks upon the heaven, nor earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.

Tro. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so Away, Patroclus.

[Exeunt Achil. and Patr. Ther. With too much blood, and too little brain, these two may run mad; but if with too much brain, and too little blood, they do, I'll be a curer of madmen. Here's Agamemnon,-an honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails 5 but he has not so much brain as ear-wax: And the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull,-the primitive statue, and oblique memorial of cuckolds 6 a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother's leg,-to what form, but that he is, should wit larded with malice, and malice forced' with wit, turn him to? To an ass, were nothing; he is both ass and ox: to an ox, were nothing; he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew,8 a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not

ACT V.

SCENE I.-The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' care: but to be Menelaus, -I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would be, if I were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse of a lazar,9 so I were not Menelaus.-Hey day! spirits and fires!

tent. Enter Achilles and Patroclus.

much,

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

Ulyss.
You shall command me, sir.
As gentle tell me, of what honour was
This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there
That wails her absence?

Tro. O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars,
A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord?
She was belov'd, she lov'd; she is, and doth :
But still, sweet love is food for fortune's tooth.

[Exeunt.

Achil. I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine
to-night,
Which with my scimitar I'll cool to-morrow.-
Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.
Patr. Here comes Thersites.

Enter Thersites.

Achil.
How now, thou core of envy?
Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news?
Ther. Why, thou picture of what thou seemest,
and idol of idiot-worshippers, here's a letter for thee.
Achil. From whence, fragment?

Ther. Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.
Patr. Who keeps the tent now?

Ther. The surgeon's box, or the patient's wound. Patr. Well said, Adversity !3 and what need these tricks?

Ther. Pr'ythee be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk thou art thought to be Achilles' male varlet.

:

Ther. No? why art thou then exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sleive4 silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered with such water-flies; diminutives of nature! Patr. Out, gall!

Ther. Finch-egg!

Achil. My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
From my great purpose in to-morrow's battle.
Here is a letter from queen Hecuba;
A token from her daughter, my fair love;
Both taxing me, and gaging me to keep
An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it:
Fall, Greeks; fail, fame; honour, or go, or stay;
My major vow lies here, this I'll obey.-
Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent:
This night in banqueting must all be spent.

Patr. Male varlet, you rogue! what's that? Ther. Why, his masculine whore. Now the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o'gravel i'the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, limekilns i'the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries!

Patr. Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus?

Ther. Do I curse thee?

Patr. Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.

(1) Feast.
(2) Small drums. (3) Contrariety.
(4) Coarse, unwrought. (5) Harlots.

Enter Hector, Troilus, Ajax, Agamemnon, Ulysses,
Nestor, Menelaus, and Diomed, with lights.
Agam. We go wrong, we go wrong.
Ajax.
No, yonder 'tis ;

There, where we see the lights.
Hect.

I trouble you.

Ajax. No, not a whit.
Ulyss.

Here comes himself to guide you.
Enter Achilles.

Achil. Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, prin-
ces all.

Agam. So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good night.

To Calchas' tent; I'll keep you company.

[Aside to Troilus.

Tro. Sweet sir, you honour me.
Hect.

And so good night. [Exit Diomed; Ulyss. and Tro. following. Achil. Come, come, enter my tent.

[Exeunt Achilles, Hector, Ajax, and Nestor. Ther. That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will no more trust him when he leers, than I will a serpent when he hisses: he will spend his mouth, and promise, like Brabler the hound; but when he performs, astronomers foretell it; it is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun borrows of the moon, when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather leave to see Hector, than not to dog him: they say, he keeps a Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas' tent: I'll after.-Nothing but lechery! all incontinent|| I will be patient. varlets!

Cres.

[Exit. SCENE II.-The same. Before Calchas' tent. Enter Diomedes.

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

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

Cal. [Within.] She comes to you.

Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself
To wrathful terms: this place is dangerous;
The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.
Tro. Behold, I pray you!
Ulyss.

Now, good my lord, go off:
You flow to great destruction; come, my lord.
Tro. I pr'ythee, stay.
Ulyss

You have not patience; come.

Tro. I pray you, stay; by hell, and all hell's

torments,

I

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

O wither'd truth!

Ulyss.
Tro.

Why,

Doth that grieve thee? how now, lord?

By Jove,

Guardian!-why, Greek! Dio. Pho, pho! adieu; you palter.3

She strokes his cheek!

Cres. In faith, I do not; come hither once again.
Ulyss. You shake, my lord, at something; will
you go?
You will break out.
Tro.
Ulyss.
Come, come.
Tro. Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a
word:
There is between my will and all offences,
A guard of patience:-stay a little while.

Ther. How the devil luxury, with his fat rump and potatoe finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry!

Dio. But will you then?

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

[Exit.

Ulyss. You have sworn patience.
Tro.
Fear me not, my lord;
I will not be myself, nor have cognition4
Of what I feel; I am all patience.

Re-enter Cressida.

Ther. Now the pledge; now, now, now!
Cres. Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.
Tro. O beauty! where's thy faith?
Ulyss.
My lord,-
Tro. I will be patient; outwardly I will.
Cres. You look upon that sleeve; Behold it

well.

(3) Shuffle

He loved me-O false wench!-Give't me again.
Dio. Who was't?
Cres.

No matter, now I have't again.
I will not meet with you to-morrow night:
pr'ythee, Diomed, visit me no more.
Ther. Now she sharpens;-Well said, whetstone.
Dio. I shall have it.

Cres.

What, this?

Dio.

Ay, that.
Cres. O, all you gods!-O pretty, pretty pledge!
Thy master now lies thinking in his bed

Of thee, and me; and sighs, and takes my glove,
And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,

As I kiss thee.-Nay, do not snatch it from me;
He, that takes that, must take my heart withal.
Dio. I had your heart before, this follows it.
Tro. I did swear patience.

Cres. You shall not have it, Diomed; 'faith you
shall not;
I'll give you something else.

Dio. I will have this; Whose was it?
Cres.

'Tis no matter,

(4) Knowledge.

Dio, Come, tell me whose it was.

Cres. 'Twas one's that loved me better than you If sanctimony be the gods' delight,
will.
If there be rule in unity itself,

But, now you have it, take it.

Dio.
Whose was it?
Cres. By all Diana's waiting-women yonder,1
And by herself, I will not tell you whose.

Dio. To-morrow will I wear it on my helm; And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it. Tro. Wert thou the devil, and wor'st it on thy horn,

This was not she. O madness of discourse,
That cause sets up with and against itself!
Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt
Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
Without revolt; this is, and is not, Cressid!
Within Iny soul there doth commence a fight
Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate
Divides more wider than the sky and earth;
And yet the spacious breadth of this division

It should be challeng'd.

it is not;

Cres. Well, well, 'tis done, 'tis past ;-And yet Admits no orifice for a point, as subtle
As is Arachne's broken woof, to enter.
Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates;
Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven:
Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself;
The bonds of heaven are slipp'd, dissolv'd, and
loos'd;

I will not keep my word.
Dio.
Why then, farewell;
Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.
Cres. You shall not go:-One cannot speak a
word,
But it straight starts you.
Dio.
I do not like this fooling.
Ther. Nor I, by Pluto: but that that likes not
you, pleases me best.

Dio. What, shall I come? the hour?
Cres.
Ay, come :-O Jove!
Do come :-I shall be plagu❜d.
Dio.
Farewell till then.
Cres. Good night. I pr'ythee, come.-
[Exit Diomedes.
Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee;
But with my heart the other eye doth see.
Ah! poor our sex ! this fault in us I find,
The error of our eye directs our mind:
What error leads, must err; O then conclude,
Minds, sway'd by eyes, are full of turpitude.
[Exit Cressida.
Ther. A proof of strength she could not publish

more,

Unless she said, My mind is now turn'd whore.
Ulyss. All's done, my lord.
Tro.
It is.
Ulyss.
Why stay we then?
Tro. To make a recordation2 to my soul
Of every syllable that here was spoke.
But, if I tell how these two did co-act,
Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?
Sith3 yet there is a credence4 in my heart,
As esperances so obstinately strong,
That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears;
As if those organs had deceptious functions,
Created only to calumniate.
Was Cressid here?

If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimony,

And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy reliques
Of her o'er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.

Ulyss. May worthy Troilus be half attach'd
With that which here his passion doth express?

Tro. Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well,
In characters as red as Mars his heart
Inflam'd with Venus: never did young man fancy 10
With so eternal and so fix'd a soul.
Hark, Greek-As much as I do Cressid love,
So much by weight hate I her Diomed:
That sleeve is mine, that he'll bear on his helm;
Were it a casquell compos'd by Vulcan's skill,
My sword should bite it: not the dreadful spout,
Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
Constring'd12 in mass by the almighty sun,
Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune's ear
In his descent, than shall my prompted sword
Falling on Diomed.

13

Ther. He'll tickle it for his concupy.
Tro. O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false,
false !
Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,
And they'll seem glorious.

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

Enter Eneas.

Ene. I have been seeking you this hour, my lard:
Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy;
Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.
Tro. Have with you, prince:-My courteous lord,
adieu :

Farewell, revolted fair!—and, Diomed,
Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head!
Ulyss. I'll bring you to the gates.
Tro. Accept distracted thanks.

[Exeunt Troilus, Eneas, and Ulysses. Ther. 'Would, I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me any thing for the intelligence of this whore: the parrot will not do more for an almond, than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery; nothing else holds fashion: A burning devil take them! [Exit. SCENE III-Troy. Before Priam's palace.

Enter Hector and Andromache. And. When was my lord so much ungently temper'd,

Come, Hector, come, go back: Thy wife hath dream'd; thy mother hath had visions;

Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself
Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt,
ofTo tell thee-that this day is ominous :
Therefore, come back.
Hect.
Eneas is afield;
And I do stand engag'd to many Greeks,
Even in the faith of valour, to appear
This morning to them.

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.

Pan. A whoreson ptisic, a whoreson rascally ptisic 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 to-day.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?