Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare
Act 3 - Scene 3
The Grecian camp. Before Achilles’ tent.
Calchas : Now, princes, for the service I have done you,
[p]The advantage of the
time prompts me aloud
[p]To call for recompense. Appear it to your
mind
[p]That, through the sight I bear in things to love,
[p]I have
abandon'd Troy, left my possession,
[p]Incurr'd a traitor's name;
exposed myself,
[p]From certain and possess'd conveniences,
[p]To
doubtful fortunes; sequestering from me all
[p]That time,
acquaintance, custom and condition
[p]Made tame and most familiar to
my nature,
[p]And here, to do you service, am become
[p]As new into
the world, strange, unacquainted:
[p]I do beseech you, as in way of
taste,
[p]To give me now a little benefit,
[p]Out of those many
register'd in promise,
[p]Which, you say, live to come in my behalf.
Agamemnon : What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? make demand.
Calchas : You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor,
[p]Yesterday took: Troy
holds him very dear.
[p]Oft have you--often have you thanks
therefore--
[p]Desired my Cressid in right great exchange,
[p]Whom
Troy hath still denied: but this Antenor,
[p]I know, is such a wrest
in their affairs
[p]That their negotiations all must slack,
[p]Wanting
his manage; and they will almost
[p]Give us a prince of blood, a son
of Priam,
[p]In change of him: let him be sent, great princes,
[p]And
he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
[p]Shall quite strike off
all service I have done,
[p]In most accepted pain.
Agamemnon : Let Diomedes bear him,
[p]And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall
have
[p]What he requests of us. Good Diomed,
[p]Furnish you fairly for
this interchange:
[p]Withal bring word if Hector will to-morrow
[p]Be
answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready.
Diomedes : This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden
[p]Which I am proud to
bear.
Ulysses : Achilles stands i' the entrance of his tent:
[p]Please it our general
to pass strangely by him,
[p]As if he were forgot; and, princes
all,
[p]Lay negligent and loose regard upon him:
[p]I will come last.
'Tis like he'll question me
[p]Why such unplausive eyes are bent on
him:
[p]If so, I have derision medicinable,
[p]To use between your
strangeness and his pride,
[p]Which his own will shall have desire to
drink:
[p]It may be good: pride hath no other glass
[p]To show itself
but pride, for supple knees
[p]Feed arrogance and are the proud man's
fees.
Agamemnon : We'll execute your purpose, and put on
[p]A form of strangeness as we
pass along:
[p]So do each lord, and either greet him not,
[p]Or else
disdainfully, which shall shake him more
[p]Than if not look'd on. I
will lead the way.
Achilles : What, comes the general to speak with me?
[p]You know my mind, I'll
fight no more 'gainst Troy.
Agamemnon : What says Achilles? would he aught with us?
Nestor : Would you, my lord, aught with the general?
Achilles : No.
Nestor : Nothing, my lord.
Agamemnon : The better.
Achilles : Good day, good day.
Menelaus : How do you? how do you?
Achilles : What, does the cuckold scorn me?
Ajax : How now, Patroclus!
Achilles : Good morrow, Ajax.
Ajax : Ha?
Achilles : Good morrow.
Ajax : Ay, and good next day too.
Achilles : What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?
Patroclus : They pass by strangely: they were used to bend
[p]To send their smiles
before them to Achilles;
[p]To come as humbly as they used to
creep
[p]To holy altars.
Achilles : What, am I poor of late?
[p]'Tis certain, greatness, once fall'n out
with fortune,
[p]Must fall out with men too: what the declined
is
[p]He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
[p]As feel in his
own fall; for men, like butterflies,
[p]Show not their mealy wings but
to the summer,
[p]And not a man, for being simply man,
[p]Hath any
honour, but honour for those honours
[p]That are without him, as
place, riches, favour,
[p]Prizes of accident as oft as merit:
[p]Which
when they fall, as being slippery standers,
[p]The love that lean'd on
them as slippery too,
[p]Do one pluck down another and together
[p]Die
in the fall. But 'tis not so with me:
[p]Fortune and I are friends: I
do enjoy
[p]At ample point all that I did possess,
[p]Save these men's
looks; who do, methinks, find out
[p]Something not worth in me such
rich beholding
[p]As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;
[p]I'll
interrupt his reading.
[p]How now Ulysses!
Ulysses : Now, great Thetis' son!
Achilles : What are you reading?
Ulysses : A strange fellow here
[p]Writes me: 'That man, how dearly ever
parted,
[p]How much in having, or without or in,
[p]Cannot make boast
to have that which he hath,
[p]Nor feels not what he owes, but by
reflection;
[p]As when his virtues shining upon others
[p]Heat them
and they retort that heat again
[p]To the first giver.'
Achilles : This is not strange, Ulysses.
[p]The beauty that is borne here in the
face
[p]The bearer knows not, but commends itself
[p]To others' eyes;
nor doth the eye itself,
[p]That most pure spirit of sense, behold
itself,
[p]Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed
[p]Salutes
each other with each other's form;
[p]For speculation turns not to
itself,
[p]Till it hath travell'd and is mirror'd there
[p]Where it
may see itself. This is not strange at all.
Ulysses : I do not strain at the position,--
[p]It is familiar,--but at the
author's drift;
[p]Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves
[p]That
no man is the lord of any thing,
[p]Though in and of him there be much
consisting,
[p]Till he communicate his parts to others:
[p]Nor doth he
of himself know them for aught
[p]Till he behold them form'd in the
applause
[p]Where they're extended; who, like an
arch,
[p]reverberates
[p]The voice again, or, like a gate of
steel
[p]Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
[p]His figure and
his heat. I was much wrapt in this;
[p]And apprehended here
immediately
[p]The unknown Ajax.
[p]Heavens, what a man is there! a
very horse,
[p]That has he knows not what. Nature, what things there
are
[p]Most abject in regard and dear in use!
[p]What things again
most dear in the esteem
[p]And poor in worth! Now shall we see
to-morrow--
[p]An act that very chance doth throw upon him--
[p]Ajax
renown'd. O heavens, what some men do,
[p]While some men leave to
do!
[p]How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall,
[p]Whiles others
play the idiots in her eyes!
[p]How one man eats into another's
pride,
[p]While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
[p]To see these
Grecian lords!--why, even already
[p]They clap the lubber Ajax on the
shoulder,
[p]As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast
[p]And great
Troy shrieking.
Achilles : I do believe it; for they pass'd by me
[p]As misers do by beggars,
neither gave to me
[p]Good word nor look: what, are my deeds forgot?
Ulysses : Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
[p]Wherein he puts alms for
oblivion,
[p]A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
[p]Those scraps
are good deeds past; which are devour'd
[p]As fast as they are made,
forgot as soon
[p]As done: perseverance, dear my lord,
[p]Keeps honour
bright: to have done is to hang
[p]Quite out of fashion, like a rusty
mail
[p]In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
[p]For honour
travels in a strait so narrow,
[p]Where one but goes abreast: keep
then the path;
[p]For emulation hath a thousand sons
[p]That one by
one pursue: if you give way,
[p]Or hedge aside from the direct
forthright,
[p]Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by
[p]And leave
you hindmost;
[p]Or like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,
[p]Lie
there for pavement to the abject rear,
[p]O'er-run and trampled on:
then what they do in present,
[p]Though less than yours in past, must
o'ertop yours;
[p]For time is like a fashionable host
[p]That slightly
shakes his parting guest by the hand,
[p]And with his arms
outstretch'd, as he would fly,
[p]Grasps in the comer: welcome ever
smiles,
[p]And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not
[p]virtue
seek
[p]Remuneration for the thing it was;
[p]For beauty, wit,
[p]High
birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
[p]Love, friendship,
charity, are subjects all
[p]To envious and calumniating time.
[p]One
touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
[p]That all with one
consent praise new-born gawds,
[p]Though they are made and moulded of
things past,
[p]And give to dust that is a little gilt
[p]More laud
than gilt o'er-dusted.
[p]The present eye praises the present
object.
[p]Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
[p]That all
the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
[p]Since things in motion sooner
catch the eye
[p]Than what not stirs. The cry went once on
thee,
[p]And still it might, and yet it may again,
[p]If thou wouldst
not entomb thyself alive
[p]And case thy reputation in thy
tent;
[p]Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
[p]Made
emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves
[p]And drave great Mars
to faction.
Achilles : Of this my privacy
[p]I have strong reasons.
Ulysses : But 'gainst your privacy
[p]The reasons are more potent and
heroical:
[p]'Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love
[p]With one of
Priam's daughters.
Achilles : Ha! known!
Ulysses : Is that a wonder?
[p]The providence that's in a watchful
state
[p]Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold,
[p]Finds bottom in
the uncomprehensive deeps,
[p]Keeps place with thought and almost,
like the gods,
[p]Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
[p]There
is a mystery--with whom relation
[p]Durst never meddle--in the soul of
state;
[p]Which hath an operation more divine
[p]Than breath or pen
can give expressure to:
[p]All the commerce that you have had with
Troy
[p]As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;
[p]And better would it
fit Achilles much
[p]To throw down Hector than Polyxena:
[p]But it
must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,
[p]When fame shall in our
islands sound her trump,
[p]And all the Greekish girls shall tripping
sing,
[p]'Great Hector's sister did Achilles win,
[p]But our great
Ajax bravely beat down him.'
[p]Farewell, my lord: I as your lover
speak;
[p]The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break.
Patroclus : To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you:
[p]A woman impudent and
mannish grown
[p]Is not more loathed than an effeminate man
[p]In time
of action. I stand condemn'd for this;
[p]They think my little stomach
to the war
[p]And your great love to me restrains you thus:
[p]Sweet,
rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid
[p]Shall from your neck
unloose his amorous fold,
[p]And, like a dew-drop from the lion's
mane,
[p]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
[p]My fame is shrewdly gored.
Patroclus : O, then, beware;
[p]Those wounds heal ill that men do give
themselves:
[p]Omission to do what is necessary
[p]Seals a commission
to a blank of danger;
[p]And danger, like an ague, subtly
taints
[p]Even then when we sit idly in the sun.
Achilles : Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus:
[p]I'll send the fool to
Ajax and desire him
[p]To invite the Trojan lords after the
combat
[p]To see us here unarm'd: I have a woman's longing,
[p]An
appetite that I am sick withal,
[p]To see great Hector in his weeds of
peace,
[p]To talk with him and to behold his visage,
[p]Even to my
full of view.
[p][Enter THERSITES]
[p]A labour saved!
Thersites : A wonder!
Achilles : What?
Thersites : Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself.
Achilles : How so?
Thersites : He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector, and is so
[p]prophetically
proud of an heroical cudgelling that he
[p]raves in saying nothing.
Achilles : How can that be?
Thersites : Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock,--a stride
[p]and a stand:
ruminates like an hostess that hath no
[p]arithmetic but her brain to
set down her reckoning:
[p]bites his lip with a politic regard, as who
should
[p]say 'There were wit in this head, an 'twould out;'
[p]and so
there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire
[p]in a flint, which
will not show without knocking.
[p]The man's undone forever; for if
Hector break not his
[p]neck i' the combat, he'll break 't himself
in
[p]vain-glory. He knows not me: I said 'Good morrow,
[p]Ajax;' and
he replies 'Thanks, Agamemnon.' What think
[p]you of this man that
takes me for the general? He's
[p]grown a very land-fish,
language-less, a monster.
[p]A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on
both
[p]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
[p]answering:
speaking is for beggars; he wears his
[p]tongue in's arms. I will put
on his presence: let
[p]Patroclus make demands to me, you shall see
the
[p]pageant of Ajax.
Achilles : To him, Patroclus; tell him I humbly desire the
[p]valiant Ajax to
invite the most valorous Hector
[p]to come unarmed to my tent, and to
procure
[p]safe-conduct for his person of the magnanimous
[p]and most
illustrious six-or-seven-times-honoured
[p]captain-general of the
Grecian army, Agamemnon,
[p]et cetera. Do this.
Patroclus : Jove bless great Ajax!
Thersites : Hum!
Patroclus : I come from the worthy Achilles,--
Thersites : Ha!
Patroclus : Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent,--
Thersites : Hum!
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 to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven o'clock it will
[p]go one way or
other: howsoever, he shall pay for me
[p]ere he has me.
Patroclus : Your answer, sir.
Thersites : Fare you 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
[p]him when
Hector has knocked out his brains, I know
[p]not; but, I am sure,
none, unless the fiddler Apollo
[p]get his sinews to make catlings
on.
Achilles : Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.
Thersites : Let me bear another to his horse; for that's the more
[p]capable
creature.
Achilles : My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd;
[p]And I myself see not
the bottom of it.
Thersites : Would the fountain of your mind were clear again,
[p]that I might
water an ass at it! I had rather be a
[p]tick in a sheep than such a
valiant ignorance.
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Next: Act 4 - Scene 1
