The History of Troilus and Cressida
Shakespeare, William
The History of Troilus and Cressida
William Shakespeare
The History of Troilus and Cressida
[Dramatis Personae
Priam, King of Troy
Hector
Troilus
Paris
Deiphobus
Helenus
his sons
Margarelon, a bastard son of Priam
Aeneas
Antenor
Trojan commanders
Calchas, a Trojan priest, taking part with the Greeks
Pandarus, uncle to Cressida
Alexander, servant to Cressida
Servant and Boy to Troilus
Servant to Paris
Agamemnon, the Greek general
Menelaus, his brother
Nestor
Ulysses
Achilles
Ajax
Diomedes
Patroclus
Greek commanders
Thersites, a deformed and scurrilous Greek
Servant to Diomedes
Helen, wife to Menelaus
Andromache, wife to Hector
Cassandra, daughter to Priam, a prophetess
Cressida, daughter to Calchas
Trojan and Greek Soldiers, and Attendants
Scene: Troy, and the Greek camp before it]
[The Prologue
In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgillous, their high blood chaf'd,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war. Sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from th' Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia, and their vow is made
To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps – and that's the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come,
And the deep-drawing [barks] do there disgorge
Their warlike fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions. Priam's six-gated city,
Dardan and Timbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,
And [Antenorides], with massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts
[Sperr] up the sons of Troy.
Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other side, Troyan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard – and hither am I come,
A prologue arm'd, but not in confidence
Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited
In like conditions as our argument,
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.
Like or find fault, do as your pleasures are,
Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.]
Act I,
[Scene I]
Enter Pandarus and Troilus.
TRO.
Call here my varlet, I'll unarm again.
Why should I war without the walls of Troy,
That find such cruel battle here within?
Each Troyan that is master of his heart,
Let him to field, Troilus, alas, hath none.
PAN.
Will this gear ne'er be mended?
TRO.
The Greeks are strong, and skillful to their strength,
Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant,
But I am weaker than a woman's tear,
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skilless as unpractic'd infancy.
PAN. Well, I have told you enough of this. For my part, I'll not meddle nor make no farther. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding.
TRO. Have I not tarried?
PAN. Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.
TRO. Have I not tarried?
PAN. Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.
TRO. Still have I tarried.
PAN. Ay, to the leavening, but here's yet in the word ›hereafter‹ the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or ye may chance burn your lips.
TRO.
Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,
Doth lesser blench at suff'rance than I do.
At Priam's royal table do I sit,
And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts –
So, traitor, then she comes when she is thence.
PAN.
Well, she look'd yesternight fairer than ever
I saw her look, or any woman else.
TRO.
I was about to tell thee – when my heart,
As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,
Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
I have (as when the sun doth light a-scorn)
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile,
But sorrow that is couch'd in seeming gladness
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.
PAN. And her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's – well, go to! – there were no more comparison between the women! But for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her, but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, but –
TRO.
O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus –
When I do tell thee there my hopes lie drown'd,
Reply not in how many fadoms deep
They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad
In Cressid's love; thou answer'st she is fair,
Pourest in the open ulcer of my heart
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,
Handiest in thy discourse, O, that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink
Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman. This thou tell'st me,
As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her,
But saying thus, in stead of oil and balm,
Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.
PAN. I speak no more than truth.
TRO. Thou dost not speak so much.
PAN. Faith, I'll not meddle in it, let her be as she is; if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; and she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.
TRO. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus?
PAN. I have had my labor for my travail; ill thought on of her, and ill thought [on] of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my labor.
TRO.
What, art thou angry, Pandarus? What, with me?
PAN. Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen. And she were [not] kin to me, she would be as fair a' Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what [care] I? I care not and she were a blackamoor, 'tis all one to me.
TRO. Say I she is not fair?
PAN. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father, let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her. For my part, I'll meddle nor make no more i' th' matter.
TRO.
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