The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  Exit

  ACHILLES (to Patroclus)

  What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?

  PATROCLUS

  They pass by strangely. They were used to bend,

  To send their smiles before them to Achilles,

  To come as humbly as they use to creep

  To holy altars.

  ACHILLES What, am I poor of late?

  ‘Tis certain, greatness once fall’n out with fortune

  Must fall out with men too. What the declined is

  He shall as soon read in the eyes of others

  As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,

  Show not their mealy wings but to the summer,

  And not a man, for being simply man,

  Hath any honour, but honour for those honours

  That are without him—as place, riches, and favour:

  Prizes of accident as oft as merit;

  Which, when they fall, as being slippery standers—

  The love that leaned on them, as slippery too—

  Doth one pluck down another, and together

  Die in the fall. But ’tis not so with me.

  Fortune and I are friends. I do enjoy

  At ample point all that I did possess,

  Save these men’s looks—who do methinks find out

  Something not worth in me such rich beholding

  As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;

  I’ll interrupt his reading. How now, Ulysses?

  ULYSSES Now, great Thetis’ son.

  ACHILLES What are you reading?

  ULYSSES A strange fellow here

  Writes me that man, how dearly ever parted,

  How much in having, or without or in,

  Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,

  Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection—

  As when his virtues, shining upon others,

  Heat them, and they retort that heat again

  To the first givers.

  ACHILLES This is not strange, Ulysses.

  The beauty that is borne here in the face

  The bearer knows not, but commends itself

  To others’ eyes. Nor doth the eye itself,

  That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself,

  Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed

  Salutes each other with each other’s form.

  For speculation turns not to itself

  Till it hath travelled and is mirrored there

  Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.

  ULYSSES

  I do not strain at the position—

  It is familiar—but at the author’s drift;

  Who in his circumstance expressly proves

  That no man is the lord of anything,

  Though in and of him there be much consisting,

  Till he communicate his parts to others.

  Nor doth he of himself know them for aught

  Till he behold them formed in th‘applause

  Where they’re extended—who, like an arch, reverb’rate

  The voice again; or, like a gate of steel

  Fronting the sun, receives and renders back

  His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this,

  And apprehended here immediately

  The unknown Ajax.

  Heavens, what a man is there! A very horse,

  That has he knows not what. Nature, what things

  there are,

  Most abject in regard and dear in use.

  What things again, most dear in the esteem

  And poor in worth. Now shall we see tomorrow

  An act that very chance doth throw upon him.

  Ajax renowned? O heavens, what some men do,

  While some men leave to do.

  How some men creep in skittish Fortune’s hall

  Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes;

  How one man eats into another’s pride

  While pride is fasting in his wantonness.

  To see these Grecian lords! Why, even already

  They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,

  As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast

  And great Troy shrinking.

  ACHILLES I do believe it,

  For they passed by me as misers do by beggars,

  Neither gave to me good word nor look.

  What, are my deeds forgot?

  ULYSSES Time hath, my lord,

  A wallet at his back, wherein he puts

  Alms for oblivion, a great-sized monster

  Of ingratitudes. Those scraps are good deeds past,

  Which are devoured as fast as they are made,

  Forgot as soon as done. Perseverance, dear my lord,

  Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hang

  Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

  In monumental mock‘ry. Take the instant way,

  For honour travels in a strait so narrow,

  Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path,

  For emulation hath a thousand sons

  That one by one pursue: if you give way,

  Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,

  Like to an entered tide they all rush by

  And leave you hindmost;

  Or, like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank,

  Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,

  O’errun and trampled on. Then what they do in

  present,

  Though less than yours in past, must o‘ertop yours.

  For Time is like a fashionable host,

  That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’ hand

  And, with his arms outstretched as he would fly,

  Grasps in the comer. Welcome ever smiles,

  And Farewell goes out sighing. O let not virtue seek

  Remuneration for the thing it was;

  For beauty, wit,

  High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,

  Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all

  To envious and calumniating time.

  One touch of nature makes the whole world kin—

  That all with one consent praise new-born gauds,

  Though they are made and moulded of things past,

  And give to dust that is a little gilt

  More laud than gilt o’er-dusted.

  The present eye praises the present object.

  Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,

  That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax,

  Since things in motion sooner catch the eye

  Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,

  And still it might, and yet it may again,

  If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive

  And case thy reputation in thy tent,

  Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of late

  Made emulous missions ’mongst the gods themselves,

  And drove great Mars to faction.

  ACHILLES

  Of this my privacy

  I have strong reasons.

  ULYSSES

  But ’gainst your privacy

  The reasons are more potent and heroical.

  ’Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love

  With one of Priam’s daughters.

  ACHILLES Ha? Known?

  ULYSSES

  Is that a wonder?

  The providence that’s in a watchful state

  Knows almost every grain of Pluto’s gold,

  Finds bottom in th’uncomprehensive deeps,

  Keeps place with aught, and almost like the gods

  Do infant thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.

  There is a mystery, with whom relation

  Durst never meddle, in the soul of state,

  Which hath an operation more divine

  Than breath or pen can give expressure to.

  All the commerce that you have had with Troy

  As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;

 
; And better would it fit Achilles much

  To throw down Hector than Polyxena.

  But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,

  When fame shall in his island sound her trump

  And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing,

  ’Great Hector’s sister did Achilles win,

  But our great Ajax bravely beat down him’.

  Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak.

  The fool slides o’er the ice that you should break. Exit

  PATROCLUS

  To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you.

  A woman impudent and mannish grown

  Is not more loathed than an effeminate man

  In time of action. I stand condemned for this.

  They think my little stomach to the war

  And your great love to me restrains you thus.

  Sweet, rouse yourself, and the weak wanton Cupid

  Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold

  And like a dew-drop from the lion’s mane

  Be shook to air.

  ACHILLES Shall Ajax fight with Hector?

  PATROCLUS

  Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.

  ACHILLES

  I see my reputation is at stake.

  My fame is shrewdly gored.

  PATROCLUS

  O then beware:

  Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves.

  Omission to do what is necessary

  Seals a commission to a blank of danger,

  And danger like an ague subtly taints

  Even then when we sit idly in the sun.

  ACHILLES

  Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus.

  I’ll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him

  T’invite the Trojan lords after the combat

  To see us here unarmed. I have a woman’s longing,

  An appetite that I am sick withal,

  To see great Hector in his weeds of peace,

  Enter Thersites

  To talk with him and to behold his visage

  Even to my full of view.—A labour saved.

  THERSITES A wonder!

  ACHILLES What?

  THERSITES Ajax goes up and down the field, as asking for himself.

  ACHILLES How so?

  THERSITES He must fight singly tomorrow with Hector, and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he raves in saying nothing.

  ACHILLES How can that be?

  THERSITES Why, a stalks up and down like a peacock—a stride and a stand; ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning; bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say ‘There were wit in this head, an’t would out’—and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man’s undone for ever, for if Hector break not his neck i‘th’ combat he’ll break’t himself in vainglory. He knows not me. I said, ‘Good morrow, Ajax’, and he replies, ‘Thanks, Agamemnon’. What think you of this man that takes me for the General? He’s grown a very land-fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may wear it on both sides like a leather jerkin.

  ACHILLES Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

  THERSITES Who, I? Why, he’ll answer nobody. He professes not answering. Speaking is for beggars. He wears his tongue in’s arms. I will put on his presence. Let Patroclus make demands to me. You shall see the pageant of Ajax.

  ACHILLES To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarmed to my tent, and to procure safe-conduct for his person of the magnanimous and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honoured captain-general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon; et cetera. Do this.

  PATROCLUS (to Thersites) Jove bless great Ajax!

  THERSITES H’m.

  PATROCLUS I come from the worthy Achilles—

  THERSITES Ha?

  PATROCLUS Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent—

  THERSITES H’m!

  PATROCLUS And to procure safe-conduct from Agamemnon.

  THERSITES Agamemnon?

  PATROCLUS Ay, my lord.

  THERSITES Ha!

  PATROCLUS What say you to’t?

  THERSITES God b’wi’ you, with all my heart.

  PATROCLUS Your answer, sir?

  THERSITES If tomorrow be a fair day, by eleven o’clock it will go one way or other. Howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me.

  PATROCLUS Your answer, sir?

  THERSITES Fare ye well, with all my heart.

  ACHILLES Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?

  THERSITES No, but he’s out o’ tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know not. But I am feared none, unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.

  ACHILLES

  Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.

  THERSITES Let me carry another to his horse, for that’s the more capable creature.

  ACHILLES

  My mind is troubled like a fountain stirred,

  And I myself see not the bottom of it.

  Exit with Patroclus

  THERSITES Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it. I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance. Exit

  4.1 Enter at one door Aeneas with a torch; at another Paris, Deiphobus, Antenor, and Diomedes the Grecian, with torch-bearers

  PARIS See, hol Who is that there?

  DEIPHOBUS It is the Lord Aeneas.

  AENEAS Is the Prince there in person? Had I so good occasion to lie long

  As you, Prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business

  Should rob my bed-mate of my company.

  DIOMEDES

  That’s my mind too. Good morrow, Lord Aeneas.

  PARIS

  A valiant Greek, Aeneas, take his hand.

  Witness the process of your speech, wherein

  You told how Diomed e’en a whole week by days

  Did haunt you in the field.

  AENEAS (to Diomedes) Health to you, valiant sir,

  During all question of the gentle truce.

  But when I meet you armed, as black defiance

  As heart can think or courage execute.

  DIOMEDES

  The one and other Diomed embraces.

  Our bloods are now in calm; and so long, health.

  But when contention and occasion meet,

  By Jove I’ll play the hunter for thy life

  With all my force, pursuit, and policy.

  AENEAS

  And thou shalt hunt a lion that will fly

  With his face backward. In humane gentleness,

  Welcome to Troy. Now by Anchises’ life,

  Welcome indeed) By Venus’ hand I swear

  No man alive can love in such a sort

  The thing he means to kill more excellently.

  DIOMEDES

  We sympathize. Jove, let Aeneas live—

  If to my sword his fate be not the glory—

  A thousand complete courses of the sun;

  But, in mine emulous honour, let him die

  With every joint a wound—and that, tomorrow.

  AENEAS We know each other well.

  DIOMEDES

  We do, and long to know each other worse.

  PARIS

  This is the most despitefull‘st gentle greeting,

  The noblest hateful love, that e’er I heard of.

  What business, lord, so early?

  AENEAS

  I was sent for to the King; but why, I know not.

  PARIS

  His purpose meets you: ’twas to bring this Greek

  To Calchas’ house, and there to render him,

  For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid.

  Let’s have your company, or if you please

  Haste there before us. ⌈Aside⌉ I constantly do think—

&nbs
p; Or rather, call my thought a certain knowledge—

  My brother Troilus lodges there tonight.

  Rouse him and give him note of our approach,

  With the whole quality wherefore. I fear

  We shall be much unwelcome.

  AENEAS ⌈aside⌉ That I assure you.

  Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece

  Than Cressid borne from Troy.

  PARIS ⌈aside⌉

  There is no help.

  The bitter disposition of the time

  Will have it so.

  ⌈Aloud⌉ On, lord, we’ll follow you.

  AENEAS Good morrow all.

  Exit

  PARIS

  And tell me, noble Diomed—faith, tell me true,

  Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship-

  Who in your thoughts merits fair Helen most,

  Myself or Menelaus?

  DIOMEDES Both alike.

  He merits well to have her that doth seek her,

  Not making any scruple of her soilure,

  With such a hell of pain and world of charge;

  And you as well to keep her that defend her,

  Not palating the taste of her dishonour,

  With such a costly loss of wealth and friends.

  He like a puling cuckold would drink up

  The lees and dregs of a flat ’tamed piece;

  You like a lecher out of whorish loins

  Are pleased to breed out your inheritors.

  Both merits poised, each weighs nor less nor more,

  But he as he: which heavier for a whore?

  PARIS

  You are too bitter to your countrywoman.

  DIOMEDES

  She’s bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris.

  For every false drop in her bawdy veins

  A Grecian’s life hath sunk; for every scruple

  Of her contaminated carrion weight

  A Trojan hath been slain. Since she could speak

  She hath not given so many good words breath

  As, for her, Greeks and Trojans suffered death.

  PARIS

  Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do:

  Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy.

  But we in silence hold this virtue well:

  We’ll but commend what we intend to sell.—

  Here lies our way. Exeunt

  4.2 Enter Troilus and Cressida

  TROILUS

  Dear, trouble not yourself. The morn is cold.

  CRESSIDA

  Then, sweet my lord, I’ll call mine uncle down.

  He shall unbolt the gates.

  TROILUS

  Trouble him not.

  To bed, to bed! Sleep lull those pretty eyes

  And give as soft attachment to thy senses

  As to infants empty of all thought.