Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida

ACT II SCENE II	Troy. A room in Priam's palace.
	Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and HELENUS
PRIAM	After so many hours, lives, speeches spent,
	Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:
	'Deliver Helen, and all damage else--
	As honour, loss of time, travail, expense,	5
	Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumed
	In hot digestion of this cormorant war--
	Shall be struck off.' Hector, what say you to't?
HECTOR	Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I
	As far as toucheth my particular,	10
	Yet, dread Priam,
	There is no lady of more softer bowels,
	More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,
	More ready to cry out 'Who knows what follows?'
	Than Hector is: the wound of peace is surety,	15
	Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'd
	The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
	To the bottom of the worst. Let Helen go:
	Since the first sword was drawn about this question,
	Every tithe soul, 'mongst many thousand dismes,	20
	Hath been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours:
	If we have lost so many tenths of ours,
	To guard a thing not ours nor worth to us,
	Had it our name, the value of one ten,
	What merit's in that reason which denies	25
	The yielding of her up?
TROILUS	Fie, fie, my brother!
	Weigh you the worth and honour of a king
	So great as our dread father in a scale
	Of common ounces? will you with counters sum	30
	The past proportion of his infinite?
	And buckle in a waist most fathomless
	With spans and inches so diminutive
	As fears and reasons? fie, for godly shame!
HELENUS	No marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons,	35
	You are so empty of them. Should not our father
	Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons,
	Because your speech hath none that tells him so?
TROILUS	You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest;
	You fur your gloves with reason. Here are	40
	your reasons:
	You know an enemy intends you harm;
	You know a sword employ'd is perilous,
	And reason flies the object of all harm:
	Who marvels then, when Helenus beholds	45
	A Grecian and his sword, if he do set
	The very wings of reason to his heels
	And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,
	Or like a star disorb'd? Nay, if we talk of reason,
	Let's shut our gates and sleep: manhood and honour	50
	Should have hare-hearts, would they but fat
	their thoughts
	With this cramm'd reason: reason and respect
	Make livers pale and lustihood deject.
HECTOR	Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost	55
	The holding.
TROILUS	What is aught, but as 'tis valued?
HECTOR	But value dwells not in particular will;
	It holds his estimate and dignity
	As well wherein 'tis precious of itself	60
	As in the prizer: 'tis mad idolatry
	To make the service greater than the god
	And the will dotes that is attributive
	To what infectiously itself affects,
	Without some image of the affected merit.	65
TROILUS	I take to-day a wife, and my election
	Is led on in the conduct of my will;
	My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
	Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores
	Of will and judgment: how may I avoid,	70
	Although my will distaste what it elected,
	The wife I chose? there can be no evasion
	To blench from this and to stand firm by honour:
	We turn not back the silks upon the merchant,
	When we have soil'd them, nor the remainder viands	75
	We do not throw in unrespective sieve,
	Because we now are full. It was thought meet
	Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks:
	Your breath of full consent bellied his sails;
	The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce	80
	And did him service: he touch'd the ports desired,
	And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive,
	He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
	Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes stale the morning.
	Why keep we her? the Grecians keep our aunt:	85
	Is she worth keeping? why, she is a pearl,
	Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships,
	And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants.
	If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went--
	As you must needs, for you all cried 'Go, go,'--	90
	If you'll confess he brought home noble prize--
	As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands
	And cried 'Inestimable!'--why do you now
	The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,
	And do a deed that fortune never did,	95
	Beggar the estimation which you prized
	Richer than sea and land? O, theft most base,
	That we have stol'n what we do fear to keep!
	But, thieves, unworthy of a thing so stol'n,
	That in their country did them that disgrace,	100
	We fear to warrant in our native place!
CASSANDRA	Within
PRIAM	What noise? what shriek is this?
TROILUS	'Tis our mad sister, I do know her voice.
CASSANDRA	Within
HECTOR	It is Cassandra.
	Enter CASSANDRA, raving
CASSANDRA	Cry, Trojans, cry! lend me ten thousand eyes,	105
	And I will fill them with prophetic tears.
HECTOR	Peace, sister, peace!
CASSANDRA	Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld,
	Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,
	Add to my clamours! let us pay betimes	110
	A moiety of that mass of moan to come.
	Cry, Trojans, cry! practise your eyes with tears!
	Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;
	Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.
	Cry, Trojans, cry! a Helen and a woe:	115
	Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go.
	Exit
HECTOR	Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains
	Of divination in our sister work
	Some touches of remorse? or is your blood
	So madly hot that no discourse of reason,	120
	Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,
	Can qualify the same?
TROILUS	Why, brother Hector,
	We may not think the justness of each act
	Such and no other than event doth form it,	125
	Nor once deject the courage of our minds,
	Because Cassandra's mad: her brain-sick raptures
	Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel
	Which hath our several honours all engaged
	To make it gracious. For my private part,	130
	I am no more touch'd than all Priam's sons:
	And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us
	Such things as might offend the weakest spleen
	To fight for and maintain!
PARIS	Else might the world convince of levity	135
	As well my undertakings as your counsels:
	But I attest the gods, your full consent
	Gave wings to my propension and cut off
	All fears attending on so dire a project.
	For what, alas, can these my single arms?	140
	What Propugnation is in one man's valour,
	To stand the push and enmity of those
	This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest,
	Were I alone to pass the difficulties
	And had as ample power as I have will,	145
	Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done,
	Nor faint in the pursuit.
PRIAM	Paris, you speak
	Like one besotted on your sweet delights:
	You have the honey still, but these the gall;	150
	So to be valiant is no praise at all.
PARIS	Sir, I propose not merely to myself
	The pleasures such a beauty brings with it;
	But I would have the soil of her fair rape
	Wiped off, in honourable keeping her.	155
	What treason were it to the ransack'd queen,
	Disgrace to your great worths and shame to me,
	Now to deliver her possession up
	On terms of base compulsion! Can it be
	That so degenerate a strain as this	160
	Should once set footing in your generous bosoms?
	There's not the meanest spirit on our party
	Without a heart to dare or sword to draw
	When Helen is defended, nor none so noble
	Whose life were ill bestow'd or death unfamed	165
	Where Helen is the subject; then, I say,
	Well may we fight for her whom, we know well,
	The world's large spaces cannot parallel.
HECTOR	Paris and Troilus, you have both said well,
	And on the cause and question now in hand	170
	Have glozed, but superficially: not much
	Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought
	Unfit to hear moral philosophy:
	The reasons you allege do more conduce
	To the hot passion of distemper'd blood	175
	Than to make up a free determination
	'Twixt right and wrong, for pleasure and revenge
	Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
	Of any true decision. Nature craves
	All dues be render'd to their owners: now,	180
	What nearer debt in all humanity
	Than wife is to the husband? If this law
	Of nature be corrupted through affection,
	And that great minds, of partial indulgence
	To their benumbed wills, resist the same,	185
	There is a law in each well-order'd nation
	To curb those raging appetites that are
	Most disobedient and refractory.
	If Helen then be wife to Sparta's king,
	As it is known she is, these moral laws	190
	Of nature and of nations speak aloud
	To have her back return'd: thus to persist
	In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,
	But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion
	Is this in way of truth; yet ne'ertheless,	195
	My spritely brethren, I propend to you
	In resolution to keep Helen still,
	For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependance
	Upon our joint and several dignities.
TROILUS	Why, there you touch'd the life of our design:	200
	Were it not glory that we more affected
	Than the performance of our heaving spleens,
	I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood
	Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,
	She is a theme of honour and renown,	205
	A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,
	Whose present courage may beat down our foes,
	And fame in time to come canonize us;
	For, I presume, brave Hector would not lose
	So rich advantage of a promised glory	210
	As smiles upon the forehead of this action
	For the wide world's revenue.
HECTOR	I am yours,
	You valiant offspring of great Priamus.
	I have a roisting challenge sent amongst	215
	The dun and factious nobles of the Greeks
	Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits:
	I was advertised their great general slept,
	Whilst emulation in the army crept:
	This, I presume, will wake him.	220
	Exeunt