Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare
Act 5 - Scene 5
Another part of the plains.
Diomedes : Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus' horse;
[p]Present the fair
steed to my lady Cressid:
[p]Fellow, commend my service to her
beauty;
[p]Tell her I have chastised the amorous Trojan,
[p]And am her
knight by proof.
Servant : I go, my lord.
Agamemnon : Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamas
[p]Hath beat down Menon: bastard
Margarelon
[p]Hath Doreus prisoner,
[p]And stands colossus-wise,
waving his beam,
[p]Upon the pashed corses of the kings
[p]Epistrophus
and Cedius: Polyxenes is slain,
[p]Amphimachus and Thoas deadly
hurt,
[p]Patroclus ta'en or slain, and Palamedes
[p]Sore hurt and
bruised: the dreadful Sagittary
[p]Appals our numbers: haste we,
Diomed,
[p]To reinforcement, or we perish all.
Nestor : Go, bear Patroclus' body to Achilles;
[p]And bid the snail-paced Ajax
arm for shame.
[p]There is a thousand Hectors in the field:
[p]Now
here he fights on Galathe his horse,
[p]And there lacks work; anon
he's there afoot,
[p]And there they fly or die, like scaled
sculls
[p]Before the belching whale; then is he yonder,
[p]And there
the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge,
[p]Fall down before him, like
the mower's swath:
[p]Here, there, and every where, he leaves and
takes,
[p]Dexterity so obeying appetite
[p]That what he will he does,
and does so much
[p]That proof is call'd impossibility.
Ulysses : O, courage, courage, princes! great Achilles
[p]Is arming, weeping,
cursing, vowing vengeance:
[p]Patroclus' wounds have roused his drowsy
blood,
[p]Together with his mangled Myrmidons,
[p]That noseless,
handless, hack'd and chipp'd, come to him,
[p]Crying on Hector. Ajax
hath lost a friend
[p]And foams at mouth, and he is arm'd and at
it,
[p]Roaring for Troilus, who hath done to-day
[p]Mad and fantastic
execution,
[p]Engaging and redeeming of himself
[p]With such a
careless force and forceless care
[p]As if that luck, in very spite of
cunning,
[p]Bade him win all.
Ajax : Troilus! thou coward Troilus!
Diomedes : Ay, there, there.
Nestor : So, so, we draw together.
Achilles : Where is this Hector?
[p]Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy
face;
[p]Know what it is to meet Achilles angry:
[p]Hector? where's
Hector? I will none but Hector.
Previous: Act 5 - Scene 4
Next: Act 5 - Scene 6
