TROILUS & CRESSIDA. William Shakespeare
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A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loath’d than an effeminate man
In time of action. I stand condemn’d for this;
They think my little stomach to the war
And your great love to me restrains you thus.
Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid
Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
And, like a dewdrop from the lion’s mane,
Be shook to airy air.
ACHILLES.
Shall Ajax fight with Hector?
PATROCLUS.
Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.
ACHILLES.
I see my reputation is at stake;
My fame is shrewdly gor’d.
PATROCLUS.
O, then, beware:
Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves;
Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Even then when they sit idly in the sun.
ACHILLES.
Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus.
I’ll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him
T’ invite the Troyan lords, after the combat,
To see us here unarm’d. I have a woman’s longing,
An appetite that I am sick withal,
To see great Hector in his weeds of peace;
To talk with him, and to behold his visage,
Even to my full of view.
[Enter THERSITES.]
A labour sav’d!
THERSITES.
A wonder!
ACHILLES.
What?
THERSITES.
Ajax goes up and down the field asking for himself.
ACHILLES.
How so?
THERSITES. He must fight singly tomorrow with Hector, and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he raves in saying nothing.
ACHILLES.
How can that be?
THERSITES. Why, ‘a stalks up and down like a peacock—a stride and a stand; ruminaies like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning, bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say ‘There were wit in this head, an ‘twould out’; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man’s undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i’ th’ combat, he’ll break’t himself in vainglory. He knows not me. I said ‘Good morrow, Ajax’; and he replies ‘Thanks, Agamemnon.’ What think you of this man that takes me for the general? He’s grown a very land fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may wear it on both sides, like leather jerkin.
ACHILLES.
Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.
THERSITES. Who, I? Why, he’ll answer nobody; he professes not answering. Speaking is for beggars: he wears his tongue in’s arms. I will put on his presence. Let Patroclus make his demands to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax.
ACHILLES. To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarm’d to my tent; and to procure safe conduct for his person of the magnanimous and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honour’d Captain General of the Grecian army, et cetera, Agamemnon. Do this.
PATROCLUS.
Jove bless great Ajax!
THERSITES.
Hum!
PATROCLUS.
I come from the worthy Achilles—
THERSITES.
Ha!
PATROCLUS.
Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent—
THERSITES.
Hum!
PATROCLUS.
And to procure safe conduct from Agamemnon.
THERSITES.
Agamemnon!
PATROCLUS.
Ay, my lord.
THERSITES.
Ha!
PATROCLUS.
What you say to’t?
THERSITES.
God buy you, with all my heart.
PATROCLUS.
Your answer, sir.
THERSITES. If tomorrow be a fair day, by eleven of the clock it will go one way or other. Howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me.
PATROCLUS.
Your answer, sir.
THERSITES.
Fare ye well, with all my heart.
ACHILLES.
Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?
THERSITES. No, but he’s out a tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has knock’d out his brains I know not; but, I am sure, none; unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.
ACHILLES.
Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.
THERSITES. Let me carry another to his horse; for that’s the more capable creature.
ACHILLES.
My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr’d;
And I myself see not the bottom of it.
[Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS.]
THERSITES. Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it. I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance.
[Exit.]
ACT IV.
SCENE 1. Troy. A street
[Enter, at one side, AENEAS, and servant with a torch; at another, PARIS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR, DIOMEDES the Grecian, and others, with torches.]
PARIS.
See, ho! Who is that there?
DEIPHOBUS.
It is the Lord Aeneas.
AENEAS.
Is the Prince there in person?
Had I so good occasion to lie long
As you, Prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business
Should rob my bed-mate of my company.
DIOMEDES.
That’s my mind too. Good morrow, Lord Aeneas.
PARIS.
A valiant Greek, Aeneas—take