The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  ACHILLES From whence, fragment?

  THERSITES Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.

  Achilles reads the letter

  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, guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o’ gravel i’th’ back, lethargies, cold palsies, and the like, take and take again such preposterous discoveries!

  PATROCLUS Why, thou damnable box of envy thou, what mean’st 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 sarsenet 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 tomorrow’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 ear-wax. 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 farced 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 owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to be Menetaus!—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, so I were not Menetaus.—Hey-day, sprites and fires.

  Enter Hector, Ajax, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor,

  Menelaus, Troilus, and Diomedes, with lights

  AGAMEMNON

  We go wrong, we go wrong.

  AJAX No, yonder ’tis:

  There, where we see the light.

  HECTOR I trouble you.

  AJAX

  No, not a whit.

  Enter Achilles

  ULYSSES Here comes himself to guide you.

  ACHILLES

  Welcome, brave Hector. Welcome, princes all.

  AGAMEMNON (to Hector)

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

  Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.

  HECTOR

  Thanks and good night to the Greeks’ general.

  MENELAUS

  Good night, my lord.

  HECTOR Good night, sweet Lord Menelaus.

  THERSITES (aside) Sweet draught! ‘Sweet’, quoth a? Sweet sink, sweet sewer.

  ACHILLES

  Good night and welcome both at once, to those

  That go or tarry.

  AGAMEMNON Good night.

  Exeunt Agamemnon and Menelaus

  ACHILLES

  Old Nestor tarries, and you too, Diomed.

  Keep Hector company an hour or two.

  DIOMEDES

  I cannot, lord. I have important business

  The tide whereof is now.—Good night, great Hector.

  HECTOR Give me your hand.

  ULYSSES (aside to Troilus)

  Follow his torch, he goes to Calchas’ tent.

  I’ll keep you company.

  TROILUS (aside) Sweet sir, you honour me.

  HECTOR (to Diomedes)

  And so good night.

  ACHILLES Come, come, enter my tent.

  Exeunt Diomedes, followed by Ulysses and

  Troilus, at one door; and Achilles, Hector,

  Ajax, and Nestor at another door

  THERSITES 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 Brabbler the hound, but when he performs astronomers foretell it: that 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 his tent. I’ll after.—Nothing but lechery! All incontinent varlets! Exit

  5.2 Enter Diomedes

  DIOMEDES What, are you up here? Ho! Speak!

  CALCHAS ⌈at the door⌉ Who calls?

  DIOMEDES Diomed. Calchas, I think. Where’s your daughter?

  CALCHAS ⌈at the door⌉ She comes to you.

  Enter Troilus and Ulysses, unseen

  ULYSSES (aside)

  Stand where the torch may not discover us.

  TROILUS (aside)

  Cressid comes forth to him.

  Enter Cressida

  DIOMEDES How now, my charge?

  CRESSIDA

  Now, my sweet guardian. Hark, a word with you.

  She whispers to him.

  ⌈Enter Thersites, unseen⌉

  TROILUS (aside) Yea, so familiar?

  ULYSSES (aside) She will sing any man at first sight.

  THERSITES (aside) And any man may sing her, if he can take her clef. She’s noted.

  DIOMEDES Will you remember?

  CRESSIDA Remember? Yes.

  DIOMEDES Nay, but do then, And let your mind be coupled with your words.

  TROILUS (aside) What should she remember?

  ULYSSES (aside) List!

  CRESSIDA

  Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.

  THERSITES (aside) Roguery.

  DIOMEDES Nay, then!

  CRESSIDA I’ll tell you what—

  DIOMEDES

  Fo, fo! Come, tell a pin. You are forsworn.

  CRESSIDA

  In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?

  THERSITES (aside) A juggling trick: to be secretly open.

  DIOMEDES

  What did you swear you would bestow on me?

  CRESSIDA

  I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath.

  Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.

  DIOMEDES Good night.

  TROILUS (aside)

  Hold, patience!

  ULYSSES (aside) How now, Trojan?

  CRESSIDA Diomed.

  DIOMEDES

  No, no, good night. I’ll be your fool no more.

  TROILUS (aside) Thy better must.

  CRESSIDA Hark, one word in your ear.

  She whispers to him

  TROILUS (aside) O plague and madness!

  ULYSSES (aside)

  You are moved, Prince. Let us depart, I pray you,

  Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself

  To wrathful terms. This place is dangerous,

  The time right deadly. I beseech you go.

  TROILUS (aside)

  Behold, I pray you.

  ULYSSES (aside) Nay, good my lord, go off.

  You flow to great distraction. Come, my lord.

  TROILUS (aside)

  I prithee, stay.


  ULYSSES (aside) You have not patience. Come.

  TROILUS (aside)

  I pray you, stay. By hell and all hell’s torments,

  I will not speak a word.

  DIOMEDES And so good night.

  CRESSIDA

  Nay, but you part in anger.

  TROILUS (aside) Doth that grieve thee?

  O withered truth!

  ULYSSES (aside) Why, how now, lord?

  TROILUS (aside) By Jove,

  I will be patient.

  ⌈Diomedes starts to go⌉

  CRESSIDA Guardian! Why, Greek!

  DIOMEDES Fo, fo! Adieu. You palter.

  CRESSIDA

  In faith, I do not. Come hither once again.

  ULYSSES (aside)

  You shake, my lord, at something. Will you go?

  You will break out.

  TROILUS (aside) She strokes his cheek.

  ULYSSES (aside) Come, come.

  TROILUS (aside)

  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.

  THERSITES (aside) How the devil Luxury with his fat rump and potato finger tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry.

  DIOMEDES But will you then?

  CRESSIDA

  In faith, I will, la. Never trust me else.

  DIOMEDES

  Give me some token for the surety of it.

  CRESSIDA I’ll fetch you one. Exit

  ULYSSES (aside) You have sworn patience.

  TROILUS (aside) Fear me not, sweet lord.

  I will not be myself, nor have cognition

  Of what I feel. I am all patience.

  Enter Cressida with Troilus’ sleeve

  THERSITES (aside) Now the pledge! Now, now, now.

  CRESSIDA Here Diomed, keep this sleeve.

  TROILUS (aside) O beauty, where is thy faith?

  ULYSSES (aside) My lord.

  TROILUS (aside)

  I will be patient; outwardly I will.

  CRESSIDA

  You look upon that sleeve. Behold it well.

  He loved me—O false wench!—give’t me again.

  She takes it back

  DIOMEDES Whose was’t?

  CRESSIDA

  It is no matter, now I ha’t again.

  I will not meet with you tomorrow night.

  I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.

  THERSITES (aside) Now she sharpens. Well said, whetstone.

  DIOMEDES I shall have it.

  CRESSIDA What, this?

  DIOMEDES Ay, that.

  CRESSIDA

  O all you gods! O pretty pretty pledge!

  Thy master now lies thinking on his bed

  Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove

  And gives memorial dainty kisses to it—

  ⌈DIOMEDES⌉

  As I kiss thee.

  ⌈he snatches the sieeve⌉

  ⌈CRESSiDA⌉ Nay, do not snatch it from me.

  He that takes that doth take my heart withal.

  DIOMEDES

  I had your heart before; this follows it.

  TROILUS (aside) I did swear patience.

  CRESSIDA

  You shall not have it, Diomed. Faith, you shall not.

  I’ll give you something else.

  DIOMEDES I will have this. Whose was it?

  CRESSIDA

  It is no matter.

  DIOMEDES Come, tell me whose it was?

  CRESSIDA

  ’Twas one’s that loved me better than you will.

  But now you have it, take it.

  DIOMEDES Whose was it?

  CRESSIDA

  By all Diana’s waiting-women yond,

  And by herself, I will not tell you whose.

  DIOMEDES

  Tomorrow will I wear it on my helm,

  And grieve his spirit that dares, not challenge it.

  TROILUS (aside)

  Wert thou the devil and wor’st it on thy horn,

  It should be challenged.

  CRESSIDA

  Well, well, ‘tis done, ’tis past—and yet it is not.

  I will not keep my word.

  DIOMEDES Why then, farewell.

  Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.

  CRESSIDA

  You shall not go. One cannot speak a word

  But it straight starts you.

  DIOMEDES I do not like this fooling.

  ⌈TROILUS⌉ (aside)

  Nor I, by Pluto—but that that likes not you

  Pleases me best.

  DIOMEDES What, shall I come? The hour—

  CRESSIDA

  Ay, come. O Jove, do come. I shall be plagued.

  DIOMEDES

  Farewell till then.

  CRESSIDA Good night. I prithee, 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 swayed by eyes are full of turpitude. Exit

  THERSITES (aside)

  A proof of strength she could not publish more

  Unless she said, ‘My mind is now turned whore’.

  ULYSSES

  All’s done, my lord.

  TROILUS It is.

  ULYSSES Why stay we then?

  TROILUS

  To make a recordation 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?

  Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,

  An esperance so obstinately strong,

  That doth invert th’attest of eyes and ears,

  As if those organs had deceptious functions

  Created only to calumniate.

  Was Cressid here?

  ULYSSES I cannot conjure, Trojan.

  TROILUS

  She was not, sure.

  ULYSSES Most sure, she was.

  TROILUS

  Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.

  ULYSSES

  Nor mine, my lord. Cressid was here but now.

  TROILUS

  Let it not be believed, for womanhood.

  Think: we had mothers. Do not give advantage

  To stubborn critics, apt without a theme

  For depravation to square the general sex

  By Cressid’s rule. Rather, think this not Cressid.

  ULYSSES

  What hath she done, Prince, that can soil our mothers?

  TROILUS

  Nothing at all, unless that this were she.

  THERSITES (aside) Will a swagger himself out on’s own eyes?

  TROILUS

  This, she? No, this is Diomed’s Cressida.

  If beauty have a soul, this is not she.

  If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,

  If sanctimony be the gods’ delight,

  If there be rule in unity itself,

  This is not she. O madness of discourse,

  That cause sets up with and against thyselfl

  Bifold authority, where reason can revolt

  Without perdition, and loss assume all reason

  Without revolt! This is and is not Cressid.

  Within my soul there doth conduce 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

  Admits no orifex for a point as subtle

  As Ariachne’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 slipped, dissolved, and loosed,<
br />
  And with another knot, five-finger-tied,

  The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,

  The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics

  Of her o’er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.

  ULYSSES

  May worthy Troilus e’en be half attached

  With that which here his passion doth express?

  TROILUS

  Ay, Greek, and that shall be divulged well

  In characters as red as Mars his heart

  Inflamed with Venus. Never did young man fancy

  With so eternal and so fixed 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 in his helm.

  Were it a casque composed by Vulcan’s skill,

  My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout

  Which shipmen do the hurricano call,

  Constringed 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.

  THERSITES (aside) He’ll tickle it for his concupy.

  TROILUS

  O Cressid, O false Cressid! False, false, false.

  Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,

  And they’ll seem glorious.

  ULYSSES O contain yourself.

  Your passion draws ears hither.

  Enter Aeneas

  AENEAS (to Troilus)

  I have been seeking you this hour, my lord.

  Hector by this is arming him in Troy.

  Ajax your guard stays to conduct you home.

  TROILUS

  Have with you, Prince.—My courteous lord, adieu.—

  Farewell, revolted fair; and Diomed,

  Stand fast and wear a castle on thy head.

  ULYSSES

  I’ll bring you to the gates.

  TROILUS Accept distracted thanks.

  Exeunt Troilus, Aeneas, and Ulysses

  THERSITES Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven. I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything 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

  5.3 Enter Hector armed, and Andromache

  ANDROMACHE

  When was my lord so much ungently tempered

  To stop his ears against admonishment?

  Unarm, unarm, and do not fight today.