Inflamed with Venus: never did young man fancy
With so eternal and so fix'd 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 on 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. torrent
Ther. He'll tickle it for his concupy.

Tro. O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false ! 'Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,

And they'll seem glorious.

Ulyss. O, contain yourself;

Your passion draws ears hither.

Enter ENEAS.dadd

Ene. 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.

Tro. Have with you, prince:-My courteous lord, adieu:

Farewell, revolted fair!-and Diomed,

Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head!

Ulyss. I'll bring you to the gates.

Tro. Accept distracted thanks.

[Exeunt TROILUS, ENEAS, and ULYSSES. Ther. '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!

SCENE III-Troy. Before PRIAM's Palace.

Enter HECTOR and ANDROMACHE.

And. When was my lord so much ungently temper'd, To stop his ears against admonishment?

Unarm, unarm, and do not fight to-day.

Hect. You train me to offend you; get you in:

By all the everlasting gods, I'll go.

And. My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to-day.
Hect. No more, I say.

Enter CASSANDRA.

Cas. Where is my brother Hector?

And. Here, sister; arm'd, and bloody in intent:
Consort with me in loud and dear § petition,
Pursue we him on knees; for I have dream'd
Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night

Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.
Concupiscence.

Love

† Compressed.

[Exit.

1:|:33

Earnest

Cas. O, it is true.ali dobe

Hect. Ho! bid my trumpet sound!

Cas. No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother Hect. Begone, I say: the gods have heard me swear. Cas. The gods are deaf to hot and peevish* vows! They are polluted offerings, more abhorr'd

Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.

And. O! be persuaded: Do not count it holy
To hurt by being just: it is as lawful,

For we would give much, to use violent thefts,
And rob in the behalf of charity.

Cas. It is the purpose that makes strong the vow;
But vows, to every purpose, must not hold:
Unarm, sweet Hector.

Hect. Hold you still, I say;

Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate:

Life every man holds dear; but the dear † man
Holds honour far more precious dear than life.-

Enter TROILUS.

How now, young man ? mean'st thou to fight to-day?
And. Cassandra, call my father to persuade. [Exit CASSANDRA.
Hect. No, 'faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth,

I am to-day i' the vein of chivalry:

Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong,

And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.

Unarm thee, go; and doubt thou not, brave boy,
I'll stand, to-day, for thee, and me, and Troy.
Tro. Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
Which better fits a lion than a man.

Hect. What vice is that, good Troilus? chide me for it.
Tro. When many times the captive Grecians fall,
Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,

You bid them rise, and live.

Hect. O, 'tis fair play.

Tro. Fool's play, by heaven, Hector.
Hect. How now, how now ?

Tro. For the love of all the gods,

Let's leave the hermit pity with our mother;
And when we have our armours buckled on,
The venom'd vengeance ride upon our swords;
Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth.
Hect. Fie, savage, fie!

Tro. Hector, then 'tis wars.

Hect. Troilus, I would not have you fight to-day.
Tro. Who should withhold me?

Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars

Beckoning with fiery truncheon my retire;
Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,

Their eyes o'ergalled with recourse of tears;
Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,
Opposed to hinder me, should stop my way,
But by my ruin.

Foolish.

st Valuable.

↑ Mercy.

Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM,

Cas. Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast:
He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay,
Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,
Fall all together.

Pri. Come, Hector, come, go back:

Thy wife hath dream'd; thy mother hath had visions;
Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself

Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt,
To tell thee, that this day is ominous:
Therefore, come back.

Hect. Eneas is a-field;

And I do stand engaged to many Greeks,
Even in the faith of valour, to appear
This morning to them.

Pri. But thou shalt not go.

Hect. I must not break my faith.

You know me dutiful; therefore, dear Sir,
Let me not shame respect; but give me leave
To take that course by your consent and voice,
Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.
Cas. O Priam, yield not to him.

And. Do not, dear father.

Hect. Andromache, I am offended with you: Upon the love you bear me, get you in.

[Exit ANDROMACHE.

Tro. This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl Makes all these bodements.

Cas. O farewell, dear Hector.

Look, how thou diest! look, how thy eye turns pale!
Look, how thy wounds do bleed at many vents!
Hark, how Troy roars! how Hecuba cries out!
How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth!
Behold, destruction, frenzy, and amazement,
Like witless antics, one another meet,

And all cry-Hector! Hector's dead! O Hector!
Tro. Away!-Away!

Cas. Farewell.-Yet, soft:-Hector, I take my leave:

Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.

Hect. You are amazed, my liege, at her exclaim:

Go in, and cheer the town; we'll forth, and fight;
Do deeds worth praise, and tell you them at night.
Pri. Farewell: the gods with safety stand about thee!

[Exit,

[Exeunt severally PRIAM and HECTOR. Alarums. Tro. They are at it; hark! Proud Diomed, believe,

I come to lose my arm, or win my sleeve.

As TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other side, PANDARUS Pan. Do you hear, my lord? do you hear?

Tro. What now?

Pan. Here's a letter from yon poor girl.

Tro. Let me read.

Pan. A whoreson ptisick, a whoreson rascally ptisick so troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl; and what one

* Disgrace the respect I owe you.

thing, what another, that I shall leave you one o' these days: And I have a rheum in mine eyes too: and such an ache in my bones, that, unless a man were cursed,* I cannot tell what to think on't. What says she there?

Tro. Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart; [Tearing the letter.

The effect doth operate another way.

Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together.-
My love with words and errors still she feeds;
But edifies another with her deeds.

on.

[Exeunt severally.

SCENE IV.-Between Troy and the Grecian camp.

Alarums: Excursions. Enter THERSITES.

Ther. Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy doting foolish young knave's sleeve of Troy there, in his helm: I would fain see them meet; that that same young Trojan ass, that loves the whore there, might send that Greekish whoremasterly villain, with the sleeve, back to the dissembling luxurious drab, on a sleeveless errand. O' the other side, the policy of those crafty swearing rascals, that stale old mouseeaten dry cheese, Nestor; and that same dog-fox, Ulysses,-is not proved worth a blackberry-They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles : and now is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to-day: whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion. Soft! here comes sleeve, and t'other.

Enter DIOMEDES, TROILUS following.

Tro. Fly not; for, should'st thou take the river Styx,

I would swim after.

Dio. Thou dost miscall retire:

I do not fly; but advantageous care

Withdrew me from the odds of multitude:

Have at thee!

Ther. Hold thy whore, Grecian !-now for thy whore, Trojan ! -now the sleeve, now the sleeve!

[Exeunt TROILUS and DIOMEDES, fighting.

Enter HECTOR.

Hect. What art thou, Greek? art thou for Hector's match? Art thou of blood, and honour?

Ther. No, no:-I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave; a very filthy rogue.

Hect. I do believe thee; live.

[Exit.

Ther. God--mercy, that thou wilt believe me; But a plague break thy neck, for frighting me! What's become of the wenching rogues? I think, they have swallowed one another: I would laugh at that miracle. Yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself. I'm seek them.

VOL. III.

Under some witch's malediction.
91

[Exit.

SCENE V-The same.

Enter DIOMEDES and a SERVANT.

Dio. Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus' horse;
Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid;
Fellow, commend my service to her beauty;
Tell her, I have chastis'd the amorous Trojan,
And am her knight by proof.

Serv. I go, my lord.

Enter AGAMEMNON,

Agam. Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamus
Hath beat down Menon: bastard Margarelon
Hath Doreus prisoner:

And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam,*
Upon the pashed† corses of the kings
Epistrophus and Cedius; Polixenes is slain;
Amphimachus, and Thous, deadly hurt;
Patroclus ta'en, or slain; and Palamedes
Sore hurt and bruised: the dreadful Sagittary
Appals our numbers; Haste we, Diomed,
To reinforcement, or we perish all.

Enter NESTOR.

[Exit SERVANT.

Nest. Go, bear Patroclus' body to Achilles;
And bid the snail-pac'd Ajax arm for shame.-
There is a thousand Hectors in the field:
Now here he fights on Galathe his horse,
And there lacks work; anon, he's there afoot,
And there they fly, or die, like scaled sculls +
Before the belching whale; then is he yonder,
And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge,
Fall down before him, like the mower's swath: §
Here, there, and everywhere, he leaves and takes;
Dexterity so obeying appetite,

That what he will, he does; and does so much,
That proof is call'd impossibility.

Enter ULYSSES.

Ulyss. O, courage, courage, princes! great Achilles Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance: Patroclus wounds have rous'd his drowsy blood,

Together with his mangled Myrmidons,

That noseless, handless, hack'd and chipp'd, come to him,

Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend,

And foams at mouth, and he is arm'd, and at it,

Roaring for Troilus; who hath done to-day

Mad and fantastic execution;

Engaging and redeeming of himself,

With such a careless force, and forceless care,
As if that luck, in very spite of cunning,
Bade him win all.

* Lance.

† Bruised, crushed.

Quantity of grass cut by a single sweep of the scythe.

+ Shoal of fish