Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare

Act 5 - Scene 1

The Grecian camp. Before Achilles’ tent.

Achilles : I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night, [p]Which with my
scimitar I'll cool to-morrow. [p]Patroclus, let us feast him to the
height.

Patroclus : Here comes Thersites.

Achilles : How now, thou core of envy! [p]Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the
news?

Thersites : Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol [p]of idiot
worshippers, here's a letter for thee.

Achilles : From whence, fragment?

Thersites : Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.

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: [p]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 [p]of the south,
the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, [p]loads o' gravel i' the back,
lethargies, cold [p]palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers,
wheezing [p]lungs, bladders full of imposthume,
sciaticas, [p]limekilns i' the palm, incurable bone-ache, and
the [p]rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take [p]again such
preposterous discoveries!

Patroclus : Why thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest [p]thou to curse
thus?

Thersites : Do I curse thee?

Patroclus : Why no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson [p]indistinguishable cur, no.

Thersites : No! why art thou then exasperate, thou idle [p]immaterial skein of
sleave-silk, thou green sarcenet [p]flap for a sore eye, thou tassel
of a prodigal's [p]purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is
pestered [p]with such waterflies, diminutives of nature!

Patroclus : Out, gall!

Thersites : Finch-egg!

Achilles : My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite [p]From my great purpose in
to-morrow's battle. [p]Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba, [p]A token
from her daughter, my fair love, [p]Both taxing me and gaging me to
keep [p]An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it: [p]Fall
Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay; [p]My major vow lies here,
this I'll obey. [p]Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my
tent: [p]This night in banqueting must all be spent. [p]Away,
Patroclus!

Thersites : With too much blood and too little brain, these two [p]may run mad;
but, if with too much brain and too [p]little blood they do, I'll be a
curer of madmen. [p]Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough and
one [p]that loves quails; but he has not so much brain as [p]earwax:
and the goodly transformation of Jupiter [p]there, his brother, the
bull,--the primitive statue, [p]and oblique memorial of cuckolds; a
thrifty [p]shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his
brother's [p]leg,--to what form but that he is, should wit
larded [p]with malice and malice forced with wit turn him to? [p]To an
ass, were nothing; he is both ass and ox: to [p]an ox, were nothing;
he is both ox and ass. To be a [p]dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a
toad, a lizard, an [p]owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I
would [p]not care; but to be Menelaus, I would conspire [p]against
destiny. Ask me not, what I would be, if I [p]were not Thersites; for
I care not to be the louse [p]of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus!
Hey-day! [p]spirits and fires! [p][Enter HECTOR, TROILUS, AJAX,
AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES,] [p]NESTOR, MENELAUS, and DIOMEDES, with lights]

Agamemnon : We go wrong, we go wrong.

Ajax : No, yonder 'tis; [p]There, where we see the lights.

Hector : I trouble you.

Ajax : No, not a whit.

Ulysses : Here comes himself to guide you.

Achilles : Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, princes all.

Agamemnon : So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good night. [p]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 : Sweet draught: 'sweet' quoth 'a! sweet sink, [p]sweet sewer.

Achilles : Good night and welcome, both at once, to those [p]That go or tarry.

Agamemnon : Good night.

Achilles : Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed, [p]Keep Hector company an
hour or two.

Diomedes : I cannot, lord; I have important business, [p]The tide whereof is now.
Good night, great Hector.

Hector : Give me your hand.

Ulysses : [Aside to TROILUS] Follow his torch; he goes to [p]Calchas'
tent: [p]I'll keep you company.

Troilus : Sweet sir, you honour me.

Hector : And so, good night.

Achilles : Come, come, enter my tent.

Thersites : That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most [p]unjust knave; I
will no more trust him when he leers [p]than I will a serpent when he
hisses: he will spend [p]his mouth, and promise, like Brabbler the
hound: [p]but when he performs, astronomers foretell it; it [p]is
prodigious, there will come some change; the sun [p]borrows of the
moon, when Diomed keeps his [p]word. I will rather leave to see
Hector, than [p]not to dog him: they say he keeps a Trojan [p]drab,
and uses the traitor Calchas' tent: I'll [p]after. Nothing but
lechery! all incontinent varlets!

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