Complete Plays, The (107 page)

Patroclus

Why thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus?

Thersites

Do I curse thee?

Patroclus

Why no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.

Thersites

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

Patroclus

Out, gall!

Thersites

Finch-egg!

Achilles

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

Exeunt Achilles and Patroclus

Thersites

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

Enter Hector, Troilus, Ajax, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Menelaus, and Diomedes, with lights

Agamemnon

We go wrong, we go wrong.

Ajax

No, yonder ’tis;
There, where we see the lights.

Hector

I trouble you.

Ajax

No, not a whit.

Ulysses

 
Here comes himself to guide you.

Re-enter Achilles

Achilles

Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, princes all.

Agamemnon

So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good night.
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, sweet sewer.

Achilles

Good night and welcome, both at once, to those
That go or tarry.

Agamemnon

Good night.

Exeunt Agamemnon and Menelaus

Achilles

Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed,
Keep Hector company an hour or two.

Diomedes

I cannot, lord; I have important business,
The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector.

Hector

Give me your hand.

Ulysses

[Aside to Troilus]
 
Follow his torch; he goes to
Calchas’ tent:
I’ll keep you company.

Troilus

Sweet sir, you honour me.

Hector

And so, good night.

Exit Diomedes; Ulysses and Troilus following

Achilles

Come, come, enter my tent.

Exeunt Achilles, Hector, Ajax, and Nestor

Thersites

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

Exit

S
CENE
II. T
HE
SAME
. B
EFORE
C
ALCHAS
’
TENT
.

Enter Diomedes

Diomedes

What, are you up here, ho? speak.

Calchas

[Within]
 
Who calls?

Diomedes

Calchas, I think. Where’s your daughter?

Calchas

[Within]
 
She comes to you.

Enter Troilus and Ulysses, at a distance; after them, Thersites

Ulysses

Stand where the torch may not discover us.

Enter Cressida

Troilus

Cressid comes forth to him.

Diomedes

How now, my charge!

Cressida

Now, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you.

Whispers

Troilus

Yea, so familiar!

Ulysses

She will sing any man at first sight.

Thersites

And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she’s noted.

Diomedes

Will you remember?

Cressida

Remember! yes.

Diomedes

Nay, but do, then;
And let your mind be coupled with your words.

Troilus

What should she remember?

Ulysses

List.

Cressida

Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.

Thersites

Roguery!

Diomedes

Nay, then,—

Cressida

I’ll tell you what,—

Diomedes

Foh, foh! come, tell a pin: you are forsworn.

Cressida

In faith, I cannot: what would you have me do?

Thersites

A juggling trick,— to be secretly open.

Diomedes

What did you swear you would bestow on me?

Cressida

I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath;
Bid me do any thing but that, sweet Greek.

Diomedes

Good night.

Troilus

Hold, patience!

Ulysses

How now, Trojan!

Cressida

Diomed,—

Diomedes

No, no, good night: I’ll be your fool no more.

Troilus

Thy better must.

Cressida

Hark, one word in your ear.

Troilus

O plague and madness!

Ulysses

You are moved, prince; let us depart, I pray you,
Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself
To wrathful terms: this place is dangerous;
The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.

Troilus

Behold, I pray you!

Ulysses

Nay, good my lord, go off:
You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.

Troilus

I pray thee, stay.

Ulysses

 
You have not patience; come.

Troilus

I pray you, stay; by hell and all hell’s torments
I will not speak a word!

Diomedes

And so, good night.

Cressida

Nay, but you part in anger.

Troilus

Doth that grieve thee?
O wither’d truth!

Ulysses

 
Why, how now, lord!

Troilus

By Jove,
I will be patient.

Cressida

 
Guardian!— why, Greek!

Diomedes

Foh, foh! adieu; you palter.

Cressida

In faith, I do not: come hither once again.

Ulysses

You shake, my lord, at something: will you go?
You will break out.

Troilus

She strokes his cheek!

Ulysses

Come, come.

Troilus

Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word:
There is between my will and all offences
A guard of patience: stay a little while.

Thersites

How the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and potato-finger, tickles these together! Fry, lechery, fry!

Diomedes

But will you, then?

Cressida

In faith, I will, la; never trust me else.

Diomedes

Give me some token for the surety of it.

Cressida

I’ll fetch you one.

Exit

Ulysses

You have sworn patience.

Troilus

Fear me not, sweet lord;
I will not be myself, nor have cognition
Of what I feel: I am all patience.

Re-enter Cressida

Thersites

Now the pledge; now, now, now!

Cressida

Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.

Troilus

O beauty! where is thy faith?

Ulysses

My lord,—

Troilus

I will be patient; outwardly I will.

Cressida

You look upon that sleeve; behold it well.
He loved me — O false wench!— Give’t me again.

Diomedes

Whose was’t?

Cressida

It is no matter, now I have’t again.
I will not meet with you to-morrow night:
I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.

Thersites

Now she sharpens: well said, whetstone!

Diomedes

I shall have it.

Cressida

 
What, this?

Diomedes

Ay, that.

Cressida

O, all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge!
Thy master now lies thinking in his bed
Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove,
And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,
As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me;
He that takes that doth take my heart withal.

Diomedes

I had your heart before, this follows it.

Troilus

I did swear patience.

Cressida

You shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not;
I’ll give you something else.

Diomedes

I will have this: whose was it?

Cressida

It is no matter.

Diomedes

Come, tell me whose it was.

Cressida

’Twas one’s that loved me better than you will.
But, now you have it, take it.

Diomedes

Whose was it?

Cressida

By all Diana’s waiting-women yond,
And by herself, I will not tell you whose.

Diomedes

To-morrow will I wear it on my helm,
And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.

Troilus

Wert thou the devil, and worest it on thy horn,
It should be challenged.

Cressida

Well, well, ’tis done, ’tis past: and yet it is not;
I will not keep my word.

Diomedes

Why, then, farewell;
Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.

Cressida

You shall not go: one cannot speak a word,
But it straight starts you.

Diomedes

I do not like this fooling.

Thersites

Nor I, by Pluto: but that that likes not you pleases me best.

Diomedes

What, shall I come? the hour?

Cressida

Ay, come:— O Jove!— do come:— I shall be plagued.

Diomedes

Farewell till then.

Cressida

Good night: I prithee, come.

Exit Diomedes

Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee
But with my heart the other eye doth see.
Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find,
The error of our eye directs our mind:
What error leads must err; O, then conclude
Minds sway’d by eyes are full of turpitude.

Exit

Thersites

A proof of strength she could not publish more,
Unless she said ‘My mind is now turn’d whore.’

Ulysses

All’s done, my lord.

Troilus

It is.

Ulysses

Why stay we, then?

Troilus

To make a recordation to my soul
Of every syllable that here was spoke.
But if I tell how these two did co-act,
Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?
Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,
An esperance so obstinately strong,
That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears,
As if those organs had deceptious functions,
Created only to calumniate.
Was Cressid here?

Ulysses

 
I cannot conjure, Trojan.

Troilus

She was not, sure.

Ulysses

 
Most sure she was.

Troilus

Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.

Ulysses

Nor mine, my lord: Cressid was here but now.

Troilus

Let it not be believed for womanhood!
Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage
To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme,
For depravation, to square the general sex
By Cressid’s rule: rather think this not Cressid.

Ulysses

What hath she done, prince, that can soil our mothers?

Troilus

Nothing at all, unless that this were she.

Thersites

Will he swagger himself out on’s own eyes?

Troilus