THERSITES Has not so much wit –
ACHILLES [to Ajax] Nay, I must hold you.
THERSITES As will stop the eye of Helen’s needle, for
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whom he comes to fight.
ACHILLES Peace, fool!
THERSITES I would have peace and quietness, but the
fool will not – he there, that he. Look you there.
AJAX O thou damned cur, I shall –
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ACHILLES [to Ajax] Will you set your wit to a fool’s?
THERSITES No, I warrant you, for a fool’s will shame it.
PATROCLUS Good words, Thersites.
ACHILLES What’s the quarrel?
AJAX I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenor of the
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proclamation, and he rails upon me.
THERSITES I serve thee not.
AJAX Well, go to, go to.
THERSITES I serve here voluntary.
ACHILLES Your last service was sufferance, ’twas not
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voluntary; no man is beaten voluntary. Ajax was here
the voluntary, and you as under an impress.
THERSITES E’en so. A great deal of your wit, too, lies in
your sinews, or else there be liars. Hector shall have a
great catch an ’a knock out either of your brains. ’A
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were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.
ACHILLES What, with me too, Thersites?
THERSITES There’s Ulysses and old Nestor – whose wit
was mouldy ere your grandsires had nails on their toes
– yoke you like draught-oxen and make you plough up
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the war.
ACHILLES What? What?
THERSITES Yes, good sooth. To, Achilles! To, Ajax, to!
AJAX I shall cut out your tongue.
THERSITES ’Tis no matter. I shall speak as much as thou
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afterwards.
PATROCLUS No more words, Thersites. Peace!
THERSITES I will hold my peace when Achilles’ brach
bids me, shall I?
ACHILLES There’s for you, Patroclus.
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THERSITES I will see you hanged like clotpolls ere I
come any more to your tents. I will keep where there
is wit stirring and leave the faction of fools.
Exit.
PATROCLUS A good riddance.
ACHILLES [to Ajax]
Marry, this, sir, is proclaimed through all our host:
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That Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun,
Will with a trumpet ’twixt our tents and Troy
Tomorrow morning call some knight to arms
That hath a stomach, and such a one that dare
Maintain – I know not what; ’tis trash. Farewell.
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AJAX Farewell. Who shall answer him?
ACHILLES I know not. ’Tis put to lottery. Otherwise
He knew his man.
AJAX O, meaning you? I will go learn more of it.
Exeunt.
2.2 Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS and HELENUS.
PRIAM After so many hours, lives, speeches spent,
Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:
‘Deliver Helen, and all damage else –
As honour, loss of time, travail, expense,
Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumed
5
In hot digestion of this cormorant war –
Shall be struck off ’. Hector, what say you to’t?
HECTOR Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I
As far as toucheth my particular,
Yet, dread Priam,
10
There is no lady of more softer bowels,
More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,
More ready to cry out ‘Who knows what follows?’
Than Hector is. The wound of peace is surety,
Surety secure; but modest doubt is called
15
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To th’ bottom of the worst. Let Helen go.
Since the first sword was drawn about this question,
Every tithe soul ’mongst many thousand dismes
Hath been as dear as Helen – I mean, of ours.
20
If we have lost so many tenths of ours
To guard a thing not ours, nor worth to us
(Had it our name) the value of one ten,
What merit’s in that reason which denies
The yielding of her up?
TROILUS Fie, fie, my brother!
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Weigh you the worth and honour of a king
So great as our dread father in a scale
Of common ounces? Will you with counters sum
The past-proportion of his infinite
And buckle in a waist most fathomless
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With spans and inches so diminutive
As fears and reasons? Fie, for godly shame!
HELENUS
No marvel though you bite so sharp at reasons,
You are so empty of them. Should not our father
Bear the great sway of his affairs with reason,
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Because your speech hath none that tell him so?
TROILUS
You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest;
You fur your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons:
You know an enemy intends you harm;
You know a sword employed is perilous,
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And reason flies the object of all harm.
Who marvels, then, when Helenus beholds
A Grecian and his sword, if he do set
The very wings of reason to his heels,
And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,
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Or like a star disorbed? Nay, if we talk of reason,
Let’s shut our gates and sleep. Manhood and honour
Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their
thoughts
With this crammed reason; reason and respect
Make livers pale and lustihood deject.
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HECTOR
Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost
The holding.
TROILUS What’s aught but as ’tis valued?
HECTOR But value dwells not in particular will;
It holds his estimate and dignity
As well wherein ’tis precious of itself
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As in the prizer. ’Tis mad idolatry
To make the service greater than the god;
And the will dotes that is inclinable
To what infectiously itself affects,
Without some image of th’affected merit.
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TROILUS I take today a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will,
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots ’twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgement. How may I avoid,
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Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I chose? There can be no evasion
To blench from this, and to stand firm by honour.
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant
When we have soiled them; nor the remainder viands
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We do not throw in unrespective sieve
Because we now are full. It was thought meet
Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks.
Your breath of full consent bellied his sails;
The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce,
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And did him service; he touched the ports desired;
And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive
He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshn
ess
Wrinkles Apollo’s, and makes stale the morning.
Why keep we her? The Grecians keep our aunt.
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Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl
Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships
And turned crowned kings to merchants.
If you’ll avouch ’twas wisdom Paris went –
As you must needs, for you all cried ‘Go, go!’;
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If you’ll confess he brought home noble prize –
As you must needs, for you all clapped your hands
And cried ‘Inestimable!’ – why do you now
The issue of your proper wisdoms rate
And do a deed that never Fortune did,
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Beggar the estimation which you prized
Richer than sea and land? O theft most base,
That we have stol’n what we do fear to keep!
But thieves unworthy of a thing so stol’n,
That in their country did them that disgrace
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We fear to warrant in our native place!
Enter CASSANDRA, with her hair about her ears.
CASSANDRA Cry, Trojans, cry!
PRIAM What noise? What shriek is this?
TROILUS ’Tis our mad sister. I do know her voice.
CASSANDRA Cry, Trojans!
HECTOR It is Cassandra.
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CASSANDRA
Cry, Trojans, cry! Lend me ten thousand eyes,
And I will fill them with prophetic tears.
HECTOR Peace, sister, peace!
CASSANDRA
Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled old,
Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,
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Add to my clamour! Let us pay betimes
A moiety of that mass of moan to come.
Cry, Trojans, cry! Practise your eyes with tears!
Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilium stand;
Our firebrand brother Paris burns us all.
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Cry, Trojans, cry! A Helen and a woe!
Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go.
Exit.
HECTOR
Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains
Of divination in our sister work
Some touches of remorse? Or is your blood
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So madly hot that no discourse of reason,
Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,
Can qualify the same?
TROILUS Why, brother Hector,
We may not think the justness of each act
Such and no other than th’event doth form it,
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Nor once deject the courage of our minds
Because Cassandra’s mad. Her brain-sick raptures
Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel
Which hath our several honours all engaged
To make it gracious. For my private part,
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I am no more touched than all Priam’s sons;
And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us
Such things as might offend the weakest spleen
To fight for and maintain.
PARIS Else might the world convince of levity
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As well my undertakings as your counsels.
But I attest the gods, your full consent
Gave wings to my propension, and cut off
All fears attending on so dire a project.
For what, alas, can these my single arms?
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What propugnation is in one man’s valour
To stand the push and enmity of those
This quarrel would excite? Yet I protest,
Were I alone to pass the difficulties
And had as ample power as I have will,
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Paris should ne’er retract what he hath done
Nor faint in the pursuit.
PRIAM Paris, you speak
Like one besotted on your sweet delights.
You have the honey still, but these the gall;
So to be valiant is no praise at all.
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PARIS Sir, I propose not merely to myself
The pleasures such a beauty brings with it;
But I would have the soil of her fair rape
Wiped off in honourable keeping her.
What treason were it to the ransacked queen,
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Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,
Now to deliver her possession up
On terms of base compulsion! Can it be
That so degenerate a strain as this
Should once set footing in your generous bosoms?
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There’s not the meanest spirit on our party
Without a heart to dare, or sword to draw,
When Helen is defended, nor none so noble
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 510