SCENE 5. Another part of the plain

       [Enter DIOMEDES and A SERVANT.]

       DIOMEDES.

       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.

       SERVANT.

       I go, my lord.

       [Exit.]

       [Enter AGAMEMNON.]

       AGAMEMNON.

       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;

       Amphimacus and Thoas deadly hurt;

       Patroclus ta’en, or slain; and Palamedes

       Sore hurt and bruis’d. The dreadful Sagittary

       Appals our numbers. Haste we, Diomed,

       To reinforcement, or we perish all.

       [Enter NESTOR.]

       NESTOR.

       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.]

       ULYSSES.

       O, courage, 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.

       [Enter AJAX.]

       AJAX.

       Troilus! thou coward Troilus!

       [Exit.]

       DIOMEDES.

       Ay, there, there.

       NESTOR.

       So, so, we draw together.

       [Exit.]

       [Enter ACHILLES.]

       ACHILLES.

       Where is this Hector?

       Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face;

       Know what it is to meet Achilles angry.

       Hector! where’s Hector? I will none but Hector.

       [Exeunt.]