less to you.
MENELAUS Let me confirm my princely brother’s greeting:
You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.
HECTOR Who must we answer?
AENEAS The noble Menelaus.
HECTOR O, you, my lord? by Mars his gauntlet, thanks!
Mock not, that I affect the untraded oath;
Your quondam wife swears still by Venus’ glove:
She’s well, but bade me not commend her to you.
MENELAUS Name her not now, sir; she’s a deadly theme.
HECTOR O, pardon; I offend.
NESTOR I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft
Labouring for destiny make cruel way
Through ranks of Greekish youth, and I have seen thee,
As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed,
Despising many forfeits and subduements,
When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i’ the air,
Not letting it decline on the declined,
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,
And once fought with him: he was a soldier good;
But, by great Mars, the captain of us all,
Never saw like thee. Let an old man embrace thee;
And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.
AENEAS ‘Tis the old Nestor.
HECTOR 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.
NESTOR I would my arms could match thee in contention,
As they contend with thee in courtesy.
HECTOR I would they could.
NESTOR Ha!
By this white beard, I’ld fight with thee to-morrow.
Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time.
ULYSSES I wonder now how yonder city stands
When we have here her base and pillar by us.
HECTOR 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.
ULYSSES Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue:
My prophecy is but half his journey yet;
For yonder walls, that pertly front your town,
Yond towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,
Must kiss their own feet.
HECTOR 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.
ULYSSES 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.
ACHILLES I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses, thou!
Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee;
I have with exact view perused thee, Hector,
And quoted joint by joint.
HECTOR Is this Achilles?
ACHILLES I am Achilles.
HECTOR Stand fair, I pray thee: let me look on thee.
ACHILLES Behold thy fill.
HECTOR Nay, I have done already.
ACHILLES Thou art too brief: I will the second time,
As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.
HECTOR 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?
ACHILLES Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his body
Shall I destroy him? whether there, or 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!
HECTOR It would discredit the blest gods, proud man,
To answer such a question: stand again:
Think’st thou to catch my life so pleasantly
As to prenominate in nice conjecture
Where thou wilt hit me dead?
ACHILLES I tell thee, yea.
HECTOR 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 stithied 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; the general state, I fear,
Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.
HECTOR I pray you, let us see you in the field:
We have had pelting wars, since you refused
The Grecians’ cause.
ACHILLES Dost thou entreat me, Hector?
To-morrow do I meet thee, fell as death;
To-night all friends.
HECTOR Thy hand upon that match.
AGAMEMNON First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent;
There in the full convive we: afterwards,
As Hector’s leisure and your bounties shall
Concur together, severally entreat him.
Beat loud the tabourines, let the trumpets blow,
That this great soldier may his welcome know.
Exeunt all except TROILUS and ULYSSES
TROILUS My Lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,
In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?
ULYSSES 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.
TROILUS Shall sweet lord, be bound to you so much,
After we part from Agamemnon’s tent,
To bring me thither?
ULYSSES 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?
TROILUS O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars
A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord?
She was beloved, she loved; she is, and doth:
But still sweet love is food for fortune’s tooth.
Exeunt
Act 5
Scene 1
The Grecian camp. Before Achilles’ tent.
Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS
ACHILLES 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.
PATROCLUS Here comes Thersites.
Enter THERSITES
ACHILLES How now, thou core of envy!
Thou crusty batch of nature, what’s the news?
THERSITES Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol
of idiot worshippers, here’s a letter for thee.
ACHILLES From whence, fragment?
THERSITES Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.
PATROCLUS Who keeps the tent now?
THERSITES The surgeon’s box, or the patient’s wound.
PATROCLUS Well said, adversity! and what need these tricks?
THERSITES Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk:
thou art thought to be Achilles’ male varlet.
PATROCLUS Male varlet, you rogue! what’s that?
THERSITES 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!
PATROCLUS Why thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest
thou to curse thus?
THERSITES Do I curse thee?
PATROCLUS Why no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson
indistinguishable cur, no.
THERSITES No! why art thou then exasperate, thou idle
immaterial skein of sleave-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 waterflies, diminutives of nature!
PATROCLUS Out, gall!
THERSITES Finch-egg!
ACHILLES 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.
Away, Patroclus!
Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS
THERSITES 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; but he has not so much brain as
earwax: and the goodly transformation of Jupiter
there, his brother, the bull,–the primitive statue,
and oblique memorial of cuckolds; 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, a toad, a lizard, an