William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (351 page)

Read William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition Online

Authors: William Shakespeare

Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare

BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition

11.81Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

AJAX

Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.

HECTOR (
to Aeneas
)

The worthiest of them, tell me name by name.
But for Achilles, mine own searching eyes
Shall find him by his large and portly size.

AGAMEMNON (
embracing him
)

Worthy of arms, as welcome as to one
That would be rid of such an enemy.
But that’s no welcome. Understand more clear:
What’s past and what’s to come is strewed with husks
And formless ruin of oblivion,
But in this extant moment faith and troth,
Strained purely from all hollow bias-drawing,
Bids thee with most divine integrity
From heart of very heart, ‘Great Hector, welcome!’

HECTOR

I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon.

AGAMEMNON ⌈
to Troilus
⌉

My well-famed lord of Troy, no less to you.

MENELAUS

Let me confirm my princely brother’s greeting.
You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.

⌈
He embraces Hector and Troilus
⌉

HECTOR (
to Aeneas
)

Who must we answer?

AENEAS The noble Menelaus.

HECTOR

O, you, my lord! By Mars his gauntlet, thanks.
Mock not that I affect th’untraded oath.
Your quondam wife swears still by Venus’ glove.
She’s well, but bade me not commend her to you.

MENELAUS

Name her not now, sir. She’s a deadly theme.

HECTOR O, pardon. I offend.

NESTOR

I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft,
Labouring for destiny, make cruel way
Through ranks of Greekish youth, and I have seen thee
As hot as Perseus spur thy Phrygian steed,

And seen thee scorning forfeits and subduements,
When thou hast hung th‘advancèd sword i’th’ air,
Not letting it decline on the declined,
That I have said unto my standers-by,
‘Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life’.
And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath,
When that a ring of Greeks have hemmed thee in,
Like an Olympian, wrestling. This have I seen;
But this thy countenance, still locked in steel,
I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire
And once fought with him. He was a soldier good,
But—by great Mars, the captain of us all—
Never like thee. Let an old man embrace thee;
And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.

He embraces Hector

AENEAS (to Hector) ’Tis the old Nestor.

HECTOR

Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle,
That hast so long walked hand in hand with time.
Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee.

NESTOR

I would my arms could match thee in contention
As they contend with thee in courtesy.

HECTOR I would they could.

NESTOR

Ha! By this white beard I’d fight with thee tomorrow.
Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time.

ULYSSES

I wonder now how yonder city stands
When we have here her base and pillar by us?

HECTOR

I know your favour, Lord Ulysses, well.
Ah, sir, there’s many a Greek and Trojan dead
Since first I saw yourself and Diomed
In Ilium on your Greekish embassy.

ULYSSES

Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue.
My prophecy is but half his journey yet;
For yonder walls that pertly front your town,
Yon towers whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,
Must kiss their own feet.

HECTOR I must not believe you.

There they stand yet, and modestly I think
The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost
A drop of Grecian blood. The end crowns all,
And that old common arbitrator Time
Will one day end it.

ULYSSES So to him we leave it.

Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome.
⌈
He embraces him⌉
After the General, I beseech you next
To feast with me and see me at my tent.

ACHILLES

I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses. ⌈
To Hector⌉
Thou!
Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee.
I have with exact view perused thee, Hector,
And quoted joint by joint.

HECTOR Is this Achilles?

ACHILLES I am Achilles.

HECTOR

Stand fair, I pray thee, let me look on thee.

ACHILLES

Behold thy fill.

HECTOR Nay, I have done already.

ACHILLES

Thou art too brief. I will the second time,
As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.

HECTOR

O, like a book of sport thou‘lt read me o’er.
But there’s more in me than thou understand’st.
Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?

ACHILLES

Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his body
Shall I destroy him—whether there, or there, or
there—
That I may give the local wound a name,
And make distinct the very breach whereout
Hector’s great spirit flew? Answer me, heavens.

HECTOR

It would discredit the blest gods, proud man,
To answer such a question. Stand again.
Think’st thou to catch my life so pleasantly
As to prenominate in nice conjecture
Where thou wilt hit me dead?

ACHILLES I tell thee, yea.

HECTOR

Wert thou the oracle to tell me so,
I’d not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well.
For I’ll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there,
But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm,
I’ll kill thee everywhere, yea, o‘er and o’er.—
You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag:
His insolence draws folly from my lips.
But I’ll endeavour deeds to match these words,
Or may I never—

AJAX Do not chafe thee, cousin.—

And you, Achilles, let these threats alone,
Till accident or purpose bring you to’t.
You may have every day enough of Hector,
If you have stomach. The general state, I fear,
Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.

HECTOR (
to Achilles
)

I pray you, let us see you in the field.
We have had pelting wars since you refused
The Grecians’ cause.

ACHILLES Dost thou entreat me, Hector?

Tomorrow do I meet thee, fell as death;
Tonight, all friends.

HECTOR Thy hand upon that match.

AGAMEMNON

First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent.
There in the full convive you. Afterwards,
As Hector’s leisure and your bounties shall
Concur together, severally entreat him.
Beat loud the taborins, let the trumpets blow,
That this great soldier may his welcome know.

Flourish. Exeunt all but Troilus and Ulysses

TROILUS

My Lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,
In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?

ULYSSES

At Menelaus’ tent, most princely Troilus.
There Diomed doth feast with him tonight—
Who neither looks on heaven nor on earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.

TROILUS

Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much,
After we part from Agamemnon’s tent,
To bring me thither?

ULYSSES You shall command me, sir.

As gentle tell me, of what honour was
This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there
That wails her absence?

TROILUS

O sir, to such as boasting show their scars
A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord?
She was beloved, she loved; she is, and doth.
But still sweet love is food for fortune’s tooth.
Exeunt

5.1
Enter Achilles and Patroclus

ACHILLES

I’ll heat his blood with Greekish wine tonight,
Which with my scimitar I’ll cool tomorrow.
Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.

PATROCLUS

Here
comes Thersites.

Enter Thersites

ACHILLES How now, thou core of envy,

Thou crusty botch of nature, what’s the news?

THERSITES Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of idiot-worshippers, here’s a letter for thee.

ACHILLES From whence, fragment?

THERSITES Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.

Achilles reads the letter

PATROCLUS Who keeps the tent now?

THERSITES The surgeon’s box or the patient’s wound.

PATROCLUS Well said, adversity. And what need these tricks?

THERSITES Prithee be silent, boy. I profit not by thy talk.

Thou art thought to be Achilles’ male varlet.

PATROCLUS ‘Male varlet’, you rogue? What’s that?

THERSITES Why, his masculine whore. Now the rotten diseases of the south, guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o’ gravel i’th’ back, lethargies, cold palsies, and the like, take and take again such preposterous discoveries!

PATROCLUS Why, thou damnable box of envy thou, what mean’st thou to curse thus?

THERSITES Do I curse thee?

PATROCLUS Why, no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.

THERSITES No? Why art thou then exasperate? Thou idle immaterial skein of sleave-silk, thou green sarsenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal’s purse, thou! Ah, how the poor world is pestered with such waterflies! Diminutives of nature.

PATROCLUS Out, gall!

THERSITES Finch egg!

ACHILLES

My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
From my great purpose in tomorrow’s battle.
Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,
A token from her daughter, my fair love,
Both taxing me, and gaging me to keep
An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it.
Fall, Greeks; fail, fame; honour, or go or stay.
My major vow lies here; this I’ll obey.—
Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent.
This night in banqueting must all be spent.—
Away, Patroclus.
Exeunt Achilles and Patroclus

THERSITES With too much blood and too little brain these two may run mad, but if with too much brain and too little blood they do, I’ll be a curer of madmen. Here’s Agamemnon: an honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails, but he has not so much brain as ear-wax. And the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother the bull, the primitive statue and oblique memorial of cuckolds, a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother’s leg: to what form but that he is should wit larded with malice and malice farced with wit turn him to? To an ass were nothing: he is both ass and ox. To an ox were nothing: he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to be Menetaus!—I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would be if I were not Thersites, for I care not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menetaus.—Hey-day, sprites and fires.