| ACT III SCENE III | The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent. | |
| [
Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX,
MENELAUS, and CALCHAS
] |
| CALCHAS | Now, princes, for the service I have done you, |
| The advantage of the time prompts me aloud |
| To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind |
| That, through the sight I bear in things to love, |
| I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession, | 5 |
| Incurr'd a traitor's name; exposed myself, |
| From certain and possess'd conveniences, |
| To doubtful fortunes; sequestering from me all |
| That time, acquaintance, custom and condition |
| Made tame and most familiar to my nature, | 10 |
| And here, to do you service, am become |
| As new into the world, strange, unacquainted: |
| I do beseech you, as in way of taste, |
| To give me now a little benefit, |
| Out of those many register'd in promise, | 15 |
| Which, you say, live to come in my behalf. |
| AGAMEMNON | What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? make demand. |
| CALCHAS | You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor, |
| Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear. |
| Oft have you--often have you thanks therefore-- | 20 |
| Desired my Cressid in right great exchange, |
| Whom Troy hath still denied: but this Antenor, |
| I know, is such a wrest in their affairs |
| That their negotiations all must slack, |
| Wanting his manage; and they will almost | 25 |
| Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam, |
| In change of him: let him be sent, great princes, |
| And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence |
| Shall quite strike off all service I have done, |
| In most accepted pain. | 30 |
| AGAMEMNON | Let Diomedes bear him, |
| And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have |
| What he requests of us. Good Diomed, |
| Furnish you fairly for this interchange: |
| Withal bring word if Hector will to-morrow | 35 |
| Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready. |
| DIOMEDES | This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden |
| Which I am proud to bear. |
| [Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS] |
| [Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their tent] |
| ULYSSES | Achilles stands i' the entrance of his tent: |
| Please it our general to pass strangely by him, | 40 |
| As if he were forgot; and, princes all, |
| Lay negligent and loose regard upon him: |
| I will come last. 'Tis like he'll question me |
| Why such unplausive eyes are bent on him: |
| If so, I have derision medicinable, | 45 |
| To use between your strangeness and his pride, |
| Which his own will shall have desire to drink: |
| It may be good: pride hath no other glass |
| To show itself but pride, for supple knees |
| Feed arrogance and are the proud man's fees. | 50 |
| AGAMEMNON | We'll execute your purpose, and put on |
| A form of strangeness as we pass along: |
| So do each lord, and either greet him not, |
| Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more |
| Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way. | 55 |
| ACHILLES | What, comes the general to speak with me? |
| You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy. |
| AGAMEMNON | What says Achilles? would he aught with us? |
| NESTOR | Would you, my lord, aught with the general? |
| ACHILLES | No. | 60 |
| NESTOR | Nothing, my lord. |
| AGAMEMNON | The better. |
| [Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR] |
| ACHILLES | Good day, good day. |
| MENELAUS | How do you? how do you? |
| [Exit] |
| ACHILLES | What, does the cuckold scorn me? | 65 |
| AJAX | How now, Patroclus! |
| ACHILLES | Good morrow, Ajax. |
| AJAX | Ha? |
| ACHILLES | Good morrow. |
| AJAX | Ay, and good next day too. | 70 |
| [Exit] |
| ACHILLES | What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles? |
| PATROCLUS | They pass by strangely: they were used to bend |
| To send their smiles before them to Achilles; |
| To come as humbly as they used to creep |
| To holy altars. | 75 |
| ACHILLES | What, am I poor of late? |
| 'Tis certain, greatness, once fall'n out with fortune, |
| Must fall out with men too: what the declined is |
| He shall as soon read in the eyes of others |
| As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies, | 80 |
| Show not their mealy wings but to the summer, |
| And not a man, for being simply man, |
| Hath any honour, but honour for those honours |
| That are without him, as place, riches, favour, |
| Prizes of accident as oft as merit: | 85 |
| Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, |
| The love that lean'd on them as slippery too, |
| Do one pluck down another and together |
| Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me: |
| Fortune and I are friends: I do enjoy | 90 |
| At ample point all that I did possess, |
| Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out |
| Something not worth in me such rich beholding |
| As they have often given. Here is Ulysses; |
| I'll interrupt his reading. | 95 |
| How now Ulysses! |
| ULYSSES | Now, great Thetis' son! |
| ACHILLES | What are you reading? |
| ULYSSES | A strange fellow here |
| Writes me: 'That man, how dearly ever parted, | 100 |
| How much in having, or without or in, |
| Cannot make boast to have that which he hath, |
| Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection; |
| As when his virtues shining upon others |
| Heat them and they retort that heat again | 105 |
| To the first giver.' |
| ACHILLES | This is not strange, Ulysses. |
| The beauty that is borne here in the face |
| The bearer knows not, but commends itself |
| To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself, | 110 |
| That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself, |
| Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed |
| Salutes each other with each other's form; |
| For speculation turns not to itself, |
| Till it hath travell'd and is mirror'd there | 115 |
| Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all. |
| ULYSSES | I do not strain at the position,-- |
| It is familiar,--but at the author's drift; |
| Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves |
| That no man is the lord of any thing, | 120 |
| Though in and of him there be much consisting, |
| Till he communicate his parts to others: |
| Nor doth he of himself know them for aught |
| Till he behold them form'd in the applause |
| Where they're extended; who, like an arch, | 125 |
| reverberates |
| The voice again, or, like a gate of steel |
| Fronting the sun, receives and renders back |
| His figure and his heat. I was much wrapt in this; |
| And apprehended here immediately | 130 |
| The unknown Ajax. |
| Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse, |
| That has he knows not what. Nature, what things there are |
| Most abject in regard and dear in use! |
| What things again most dear in the esteem | 135 |
| And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow-- |
| An act that very chance doth throw upon him-- |
| Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do, |
| While some men leave to do! |
| How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall, | 140 |
| Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes! |
| How one man eats into another's pride, |
| While pride is fasting in his wantonness! |
| To see these Grecian lords!--why, even already |
| They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder, | 145 |
| As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast |
| And great Troy shrieking. |
| ACHILLES | I do believe it; for they pass'd by me |
| As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me |
| Good word nor look: what, are my deeds forgot? | 150 |
| ULYSSES | Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, |
| Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, |
| A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: |
| Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd |
| As fast as they are made, forgot as soon | 155 |
| As done: perseverance, dear my lord, |
| Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang |
| Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail |
| In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; |
| For honour travels in a strait so narrow, | 160 |
| Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; |
| For emulation hath a thousand sons |
| That one by one pursue: if you give way, |
| Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, |
| Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by | 165 |
| And leave you hindmost; |
| Or like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, |
| Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, |
| O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present, |
| Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours; | 170 |
| For time is like a fashionable host |
| That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, |
| And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, |
| Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, |
| And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not | 175 |
| virtue seek |
| Remuneration for the thing it was; |
| For beauty, wit, |
| High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, |
| Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all | 180 |
| To envious and calumniating time. |
| One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, |
| That all with one consent praise new-born gawds, |
| Though they are made and moulded of things past, |
| And give to dust that is a little gilt | 185 |
| More laud than gilt o'er-dusted. |
| The present eye praises the present object. |
| Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, |
| That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax; |
| Since things in motion sooner catch the eye | 190 |
| Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee, |
| And still it might, and yet it may again, |
| If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive |
| And case thy reputation in thy tent; |
| Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late, | 195 |
| Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves |
| And drave great Mars to faction. |
| ACHILLES | Of this my privacy |
| I have strong reasons. |
| ULYSSES | But 'gainst your privacy | 200 |
| The reasons are more potent and heroical: |
| 'Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love |
| With one of Priam's daughters. |
| ACHILLES | Ha! known! |
| ULYSSES | Is that a wonder? | 205 |
| The providence that's in a watchful state |
| Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold, |
| Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps, |
| Keeps place with thought and almost, like the gods, |
| Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. | 210 |
| There is a mystery--with whom relation |
| Durst never meddle--in the soul of state; |
| Which hath an operation more divine |
| Than breath or pen can give expressure to: |
| All the commerce that you have had with Troy | 215 |
| As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord; |
| And better would it fit Achilles much |
| To throw down Hector than Polyxena: |
| But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home, |
| When fame shall in our islands sound her trump, | 220 |
| And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing, |
| 'Great Hector's sister did Achilles win, |
| But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.' |
| Farewell, my lord: I as your lover speak; |
| The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break. | 225 |
| [Exit] |
| PATROCLUS | To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you: |
| A woman impudent and mannish grown |
| Is not more loathed than an effeminate man |
| In time of action. I stand condemn'd for this; |
| They think my little stomach to the war | 230 |
| 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 dew-drop from the lion's mane, |
| Be shook to air. | 235 |
| 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 gored. |
| PATROCLUS | O, then, beware; | 240 |
| 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 we sit idly in the sun. | 245 |
| ACHILLES | Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus: |
| I'll send the fool to Ajax and desire him |
| To invite the Trojan lords after the combat |
| To see us here unarm'd: I have a woman's longing, |
| An appetite that I am sick withal, | 250 |
| 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 saved! |
| THERSITES | A wonder! | 255 |
| ACHILLES | What? |
| THERSITES | Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself. |
| ACHILLES | How so? |
| THERSITES | He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector, and is so |
| prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he | 260 |
| raves in saying nothing. |
| ACHILLES | How can that be? |
| THERSITES | Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock,--a stride |
| and a stand: ruminates like an hostess that hath no |
| arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: | 265 |
| 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 forever; for if Hector break not his | 270 |
| neck i' the combat, he'll break 't himself in |
| vain-glory. 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, language-less, a monster. | 275 |
| A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both |
| sides, like a 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 | 280 |
| tongue in's arms. I will put on his presence: let |
| Patroclus make 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 | 285 |
| to come unarmed to my tent, and to procure |
| safe-conduct for his person of the magnanimous |
| and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honoured |
| captain-general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon, |
| et cetera. Do this. | 290 |
| 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,-- | 295 |
| THERSITES | Hum! |
| PATROCLUS | And to procure safe-conduct from Agamemnon. |
| THERSITES | Agamemnon! |
| PATROCLUS | Ay, my lord. |
| THERSITES | Ha! | 300 |
| PATROCLUS | What say you to't? |
| THERSITES | God b' wi' you, with all my heart. |
| PATROCLUS | Your answer, sir. |
| THERSITES | If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven o'clock it will |
| go one way or other: howsoever, he shall pay for me | 305 |
| ere he has me. |
| PATROCLUS | Your answer, sir. |
| THERSITES | Fare you well, with all my heart. |
| ACHILLES | Why, but he is not in this tune, is he? |
| THERSITES | No, but he's out o' tune thus. What music will be in | 310 |
| him when Hector has knocked 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 bear another to his horse; for that's the more | 315 |
| 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 | 320 |
| tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance. |
| [Exit] |
Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida: Scenes and Commentary