Troilus And Cressida

1 Enter Achilles and Patroclus.
2 ACHILLES.
3 I’ll heat his blood with Greekish wine tonight,
4 Which with my scimitar I’ll cool tomorrow.
5 Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.
6 PATROCLUS.
7 Here comes Thersites.
8 Enter Thersites.
9 ACHILLES.
10 How now, thou core of envy!
11 Thou crusty batch of nature, what’s the news?
12 THERSITES.
13 Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of idiot worshippers,
14 here’s a letter for thee.
15 ACHILLES.
16 From whence, fragment?
17 THERSITES.
18 Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.
19 PATROCLUS.
20 Who keeps the tent now?
21 THERSITES.
22 The surgeon’s box or the patient’s wound.
23 PATROCLUS.
24 Well said, adversity! And what needs these tricks?
25 THERSITES.
26 Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk; thou art said to be
27 Achilles’ male varlet.
28 PATROCLUS.
29 Male varlet, you rogue! What’s that?
30 THERSITES.
31 Why, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases of the south, the
32 guts-griping ruptures, catarrhs, loads o’ gravel in the back,
33 lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs,
34 bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, lime-kilns i’ th’ palm,
35 incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take
36 and take again such preposterous discoveries!
37 PATROCLUS.
38 Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus?
39 THERSITES.
40 Do I curse thee?
41 PATROCLUS.
42 Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.
43 THERSITES.
44 No! Why art thou, then, exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of
45 sleave silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a
46 prodigal’s purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered with such
47 water-flies, diminutives of nature!
48 PATROCLUS.
49 Out, gall!
50 THERSITES.
51 Finch egg!
52 ACHILLES.
53 My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
54 From my great purpose in tomorrow’s battle.
55 Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,
56 A token from her daughter, my fair love,
57 Both taxing me and gaging me to keep
58 An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it.
59 Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay;
60 My major vow lies here, this I’ll obey.
61 Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent;
62 This night in banqueting must all be spent.
63 Away, Patroclus!
64 [_Exit with_ Patroclus.]
65 THERSITES.
66 With too much blood and too little brain these two may run mad; but, if
67 with too much brain and too little blood they do, I’ll be a curer of
68 madmen. Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves
69 quails, but he has not so much brain as ear-wax; and the goodly
70 transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull, the primitive
71 statue and oblique memorial of cuckolds, a thrifty shoeing-horn in a
72 chain at his brother’s leg, to what form but that he is, should wit
73 larded with malice, and malice forced with wit, turn him to? To an ass,
74 were nothing: he is both ass and ox. To an ox, were nothing: he is both
75 ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchook, a toad, a lizard,
76 an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to
77 be Menelaus, I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would
78 be, if I were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse of a lazar,
79 so I were not Menelaus. Hey-day! sprites and fires!
80 Enter Hector, Troilus, Ajax, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Menelaus and
81 Diomedes with lights.
82 AGAMEMNON.
83 We go wrong, we go wrong.
84 AJAX.
85 No, yonder ’tis;
86 There, where we see the lights.
87 HECTOR.
88 I trouble you.
89 AJAX.
90 No, not a whit.
91 ULYSSES.
92 Here comes himself to guide you.
93 Re-enter Achilles.
94 ACHILLES.
95 Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, Princes all.
96 AGAMEMNON.
97 So now, fair Prince of Troy, I bid good night;
98 Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.
99 HECTOR.
100 Thanks, and good night to the Greeks’ general.
101 MENELAUS.
102 Good night, my lord.
103 HECTOR.
104 Good night, sweet Lord Menelaus.
105 THERSITES.
106 Sweet draught! ‘Sweet’ quoth a’!
107 Sweet sink, sweet sewer!
108 ACHILLES.
109 Good night and welcome, both at once, to those
110 That go or tarry.
111 AGAMEMNON.
112 Good night.
113 [_Exeunt Agamemnon and Menelaus_.]
114 ACHILLES.
115 Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed,
116 Keep Hector company an hour or two.
117 DIOMEDES.
118 I cannot, lord; I have important business,
119 The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector.
120 HECTOR.
121 Give me your hand.
122 ULYSSES.
123 [_Aside to Troilus._] Follow his torch; he goes to
124 Calchas’ tent; I’ll keep you company.
125 TROILUS.
126 Sweet sir, you honour me.
127 HECTOR.
128 And so, good night.
129 [_Exit Diomedes, Ulysses and Troilus following._]
130 ACHILLES.
131 Come, come, enter my tent.
132 [_Exeunt all but_ Thersites.]
133 THERSITES.
134 That same Diomed’s a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will
135 no more trust him when he leers than I will a serpent when he hisses.
136 He will spend his mouth and promise, like Brabbler the hound; but when
137 he performs, astronomers foretell it: it is prodigious, there will come
138 some change; the sun borrows of the moon when Diomed keeps his word. I
139 will rather leave to see Hector than not to dog him. They say he keeps
140 a Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas’ tent. I’ll after. Nothing
141 but lechery! All incontinent varlets!
142 [_Exit_.]