Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare
Act 2 - Scene 2
Troy. A room in Priam’s palace.
Priam : After so many hours, lives, speeches spent,
[p]Thus once again says
Nestor from the Greeks:
[p]'Deliver Helen, and all damage else--
[p]As
honour, loss of time, travail, expense,
[p]Wounds, friends, and what
else dear that is consumed
[p]In hot digestion of this cormorant
war--
[p]Shall be struck off.' Hector, what say you to't?
Hector : Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I
[p]As far as toucheth my
particular,
[p]Yet, dread Priam,
[p]There is no lady of more softer
bowels,
[p]More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,
[p]More ready to
cry out 'Who knows what follows?'
[p]Than Hector is: the wound of
peace is surety,
[p]Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd
[p]The
beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
[p]To the bottom of the
worst. Let Helen go:
[p]Since the first sword was drawn about this
question,
[p]Every tithe soul, 'mongst many thousand dismes,
[p]Hath
been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours:
[p]If we have lost so many
tenths of ours,
[p]To guard a thing not ours nor worth to us,
[p]Had
it our name, the value of one ten,
[p]What merit's in that reason
which denies
[p]The yielding of her up?
Troilus : Fie, fie, my brother!
[p]Weigh you the worth and honour of a
king
[p]So great as our dread father in a scale
[p]Of common ounces?
will you with counters sum
[p]The past proportion of his
infinite?
[p]And buckle in a waist most fathomless
[p]With spans and
inches so diminutive
[p]As fears and reasons? fie, for godly shame!
Helenus : No marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons,
[p]You are so empty of
them. Should not our father
[p]Bear the great sway of his affairs with
reasons,
[p]Because your speech hath none that tells him so?
Troilus : You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest;
[p]You fur your
gloves with reason. Here are
[p]your reasons:
[p]You know an enemy
intends you harm;
[p]You know a sword employ'd is perilous,
[p]And
reason flies the object of all harm:
[p]Who marvels then, when Helenus
beholds
[p]A Grecian and his sword, if he do set
[p]The very wings of
reason to his heels
[p]And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,
[p]Or
like a star disorb'd? Nay, if we talk of reason,
[p]Let's shut our
gates and sleep: manhood and honour
[p]Should have hare-hearts, would
they but fat
[p]their thoughts
[p]With this cramm'd reason: reason and
respect
[p]Make livers pale and lustihood deject.
Hector : Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost
[p]The holding.
Troilus : What is aught, but as 'tis valued?
Hector : But value dwells not in particular will;
[p]It holds his estimate and
dignity
[p]As well wherein 'tis precious of itself
[p]As in the
prizer: 'tis mad idolatry
[p]To make the service greater than the
god
[p]And the will dotes that is attributive
[p]To what infectiously
itself affects,
[p]Without some image of the affected merit.
Troilus : I take to-day a wife, and my election
[p]Is led on in the conduct of
my will;
[p]My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
[p]Two traded
pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores
[p]Of will and judgment: how may I
avoid,
[p]Although my will distaste what it elected,
[p]The wife I
chose? there can be no evasion
[p]To blench from this and to stand
firm by honour:
[p]We turn not back the silks upon the
merchant,
[p]When we have soil'd them, nor the remainder viands
[p]We
do not throw in unrespective sieve,
[p]Because we now are full. It was
thought meet
[p]Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks:
[p]Your
breath of full consent bellied his sails;
[p]The seas and winds, old
wranglers, took a truce
[p]And did him service: he touch'd the ports
desired,
[p]And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive,
[p]He
brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
[p]Wrinkles
Apollo's, and makes stale the morning.
[p]Why keep we her? the
Grecians keep our aunt:
[p]Is she worth keeping? why, she is a
pearl,
[p]Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships,
[p]And
turn'd crown'd kings to merchants.
[p]If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom
Paris went--
[p]As you must needs, for you all cried 'Go, go,'--
[p]If
you'll confess he brought home noble prize--
[p]As you must needs, for
you all clapp'd your hands
[p]And cried 'Inestimable!'--why do you
now
[p]The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,
[p]And do a deed that
fortune never did,
[p]Beggar the estimation which you prized
[p]Richer
than sea and land? O, theft most base,
[p]That we have stol'n what we
do fear to keep!
[p]But, thieves, unworthy of a thing so
stol'n,
[p]That in their country did them that disgrace,
[p]We fear to
warrant in our native place!
Cassandra : [Within] Cry, Trojans, cry!
Priam : What noise? what shriek is this?
Troilus : 'Tis our mad sister, I do know her voice.
Cassandra : [Within] Cry, Trojans!
Hector : It is Cassandra.
Cassandra : Cry, Trojans, cry! lend me ten thousand eyes,
[p]And I will fill them
with prophetic tears.
Hector : Peace, sister, peace!
Cassandra : Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld,
[p]Soft infancy, that
nothing canst but cry,
[p]Add to my clamours! let us pay betimes
[p]A
moiety of that mass of moan to come.
[p]Cry, Trojans, cry! practise
your eyes with tears!
[p]Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion
stand;
[p]Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.
[p]Cry, Trojans,
cry! a Helen and a woe:
[p]Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen
go.
Hector : Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains
[p]Of divination in
our sister work
[p]Some touches of remorse? or is your blood
[p]So
madly hot that no discourse of reason,
[p]Nor fear of bad success in a
bad cause,
[p]Can qualify the same?
Troilus : Why, brother Hector,
[p]We may not think the justness of each
act
[p]Such and no other than event doth form it,
[p]Nor once deject
the courage of our minds,
[p]Because Cassandra's mad: her brain-sick
raptures
[p]Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel
[p]Which hath
our several honours all engaged
[p]To make it gracious. For my private
part,
[p]I am no more touch'd than all Priam's sons:
[p]And Jove
forbid there should be done amongst us
[p]Such things as might offend
the weakest spleen
[p]To fight for and maintain!
Paris : Else might the world convince of levity
[p]As well my undertakings as
your counsels:
[p]But I attest the gods, your full consent
[p]Gave
wings to my propension and cut off
[p]All fears attending on so dire a
project.
[p]For what, alas, can these my single arms?
[p]What
Propugnation is in one man's valour,
[p]To stand the push and enmity
of those
[p]This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest,
[p]Were I alone
to pass the difficulties
[p]And had as ample power as I have
will,
[p]Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done,
[p]Nor faint in
the pursuit.
Priam : Paris, you speak
[p]Like one besotted on your sweet delights:
[p]You
have the honey still, but these the gall;
[p]So to be valiant is no
praise at all.
Paris : Sir, I propose not merely to myself
[p]The pleasures such a beauty
brings with it;
[p]But I would have the soil of her fair rape
[p]Wiped
off, in honourable keeping her.
[p]What treason were it to the
ransack'd queen,
[p]Disgrace to your great worths and shame to
me,
[p]Now to deliver her possession up
[p]On terms of base
compulsion! Can it be
[p]That so degenerate a strain as this
[p]Should
once set footing in your generous bosoms?
[p]There's not the meanest
spirit on our party
[p]Without a heart to dare or sword to
draw
[p]When Helen is defended, nor none so noble
[p]Whose life were
ill bestow'd or death unfamed
[p]Where Helen is the subject; then, I
say,
[p]Well may we fight for her whom, we know well,
[p]The world's
large spaces cannot parallel.
Hector : Paris and Troilus, you have both said well,
[p]And on the cause and
question now in hand
[p]Have glozed, but superficially: not
much
[p]Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought
[p]Unfit to hear
moral philosophy:
[p]The reasons you allege do more conduce
[p]To the
hot passion of distemper'd blood
[p]Than to make up a free
determination
[p]'Twixt right and wrong, for pleasure and
revenge
[p]Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
[p]Of any true
decision. Nature craves
[p]All dues be render'd to their owners:
now,
[p]What nearer debt in all humanity
[p]Than wife is to the
husband? If this law
[p]Of nature be corrupted through
affection,
[p]And that great minds, of partial indulgence
[p]To their
benumbed wills, resist the same,
[p]There is a law in each
well-order'd nation
[p]To curb those raging appetites that are
[p]Most
disobedient and refractory.
[p]If Helen then be wife to Sparta's
king,
[p]As it is known she is, these moral laws
[p]Of nature and of
nations speak aloud
[p]To have her back return'd: thus to
persist
[p]In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,
[p]But makes it much
more heavy. Hector's opinion
[p]Is this in way of truth; yet
ne'ertheless,
[p]My spritely brethren, I propend to you
[p]In
resolution to keep Helen still,
[p]For 'tis a cause that hath no mean
dependance
[p]Upon our joint and several dignities.
Troilus : Why, there you touch'd the life of our design:
[p]Were it not glory
that we more affected
[p]Than the performance of our heaving
spleens,
[p]I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood
[p]Spent more in
her defence. But, worthy Hector,
[p]She is a theme of honour and
renown,
[p]A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,
[p]Whose present
courage may beat down our foes,
[p]And fame in time to come canonize
us;
[p]For, I presume, brave Hector would not lose
[p]So rich
advantage of a promised glory
[p]As smiles upon the forehead of this
action
[p]For the wide world's revenue.
Hector : I am yours,
[p]You valiant offspring of great Priamus.
[p]I have a
roisting challenge sent amongst
[p]The dun and factious nobles of the
Greeks
[p]Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits:
[p]I was
advertised their great general slept,
[p]Whilst emulation in the army
crept:
[p]This, I presume, will wake him.
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