Nest. A woman of quick sense.
Ulyss.
Fye, fye upon her!
There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive1 of her body.*
O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue,
That give a coasting welcome ere it comes,
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts
To every ticklish reader! set them down
For sluttish spoils of opportunity,*
And daughters of the game.
All. The Trojan's trumpet.
Agam.

[Trumpet within.

Yonder comes the troop.

Enter HECTOR, armed; ENEAS, TROILUS, and other Trojans, with Attendants.

Ene. Hail, all the state of Greece! what shall be
done

To him that victory commands? Or do you purpose
A victor shall be known? will you, the knights
Shall to the edge of all extremity

Pursue each other: or shall they be divided
By any voice or order of the field?
Hector bade ask.
Agam. Which way would Hector have it?
Ene. He cares not, he'll obey conditions.
Achil. 'Tis done like Hector; but securely done,
A little proudly, and great deal misprizing
The knight oppos'd.

Ene.
What is your name?
Achil.

If not Achilles, sir,

If not Achilles, nothing.

Ene. Therefore Achilles: But, whate'er, know
this ;-

In the extremity of great and little,
Valour and pride excel themselves in Hector;
The one almost as infinite as all,

The other blank as nothing. Weigh him well,
And that, which looks like pride, is courtesy.
This Ajax is half made of Hector's blood :"
In love whereof, half Hector stays at home;
Half heart, half hand, half Hector comes to seek
This blended knight, half Trojan, and half Greek.
Achil. A maiden battle, then?-O, I perceive you.

Re-enter DIOMED.

Agam. Here is Sir Diomed :-Go, gentle knight, Stand by our Ajax: as you and Lord Æneas Consent upon he order of their fight,

So be it; either to the uttermost,

Or else a breath:9 the combatants being kin,
Half stints10 their strife before their strokes begin.
[AJAX and HECTOR enter the lists.

Ulyss. They are oppos'd already.
Agam. What Trojan is that same that looks so
heavy?

1 Motive for part that contributes to motion. This word is employed with some singularity in All's Well that Ends Well, Act iv. Sc. 2:

'As it has fated her to be my motive
And helper to a husband.

? One would almost think that Shakspeare had, on this occasion, been reading St. Chrysostom, who says:'Non loquuta es lingua, sed loquuta es gressu; non loquuta es voce, sed oculis loquuta es clarius quam voce :' ie. They say nothing with their mouthes, they speake in their gaite, they speake with their eyes, they speake in the carriage of their bodies.' This invective against a wanton, as well as the translation of it, is from Burtrin's Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III. Sect. ii. Memb. 2, Subs. 3.

3 A coasting welcome is a conciliatory welcome : that makes silent advances before the tongue has uttered a word. So in Venus and Adonis :

• Anon she hears them chaunt it lustely, And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.' 4 i. e. corrupt wenches, of whose chastity every opportunity makes an easy prey.

3' Securely done,' in the sense of the Latin securus, a negligent security arising from a contempt of the object opposed. So in the last act of the Spanish Tragedy:

'O damned devil, how secure he is,'

6 Valour (says Æneas) is in Hector greater than valour in other men, and pride in Hector is less than pride

179

Ulyss. The youngest son of Priam, a true knight:
Not yet mature, yet matchless; firm of word;
Speaking in deeds, and deedless11 in his tongue;
Not soon provok'd, nor, being provok'd, soon
calm'd:

His heart and hand both open, and both free;
For what he has, he gives, what thinks, he shows;
Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty,
Nor dignifies an impair thought with breath:
Manly as Hector, but more dangerous;
For Hector, in his blaze of wrath, subscribes
To tender objects; but he, in heat of action,
Is more vindicative than jealous love;
A second hope, as fairly built as Hector.
They call him Troilus; and on him erect
Thus says Eneas; one that knows the yout
Even to his inches, and, with private soul,
Did in great Ilion thus translate1 him to me.

[Alarum. HECTOR and AJAX fight.

Agam. They are in action.
Nest. Now, Ajax, hold thine own!
Tro.

Awake thee !

Hector, thou sleep'st;

Dio. You must no more.
Ene.

[Trumpets cease.

Princes, enough, so please you.

Ajax. I am not warm yet, let us fight again.
Dio. As Hector pleases.

Hect.
Why then, will I no more ;-
Thou art, great lord, my father's sister's son,
A cousin-german to great Priam's seed;
The obligation of our blood forbids
emulation 'twixt us twain:
gory
Were thy commixtion Greek and Trojan so,
That thou could'st say-This hand is Grecian all,
And this is Trojan; the sinews of this leg

A

All Greek, and this all Troy; my mother's blood
Runs on the dexter's cheek, and this sinister16
Bounds-in my father's; By Jove multipotent,
Thou should'st not bear from me a Greekish mem-
ber

Wherein my sword had not impressure made
Of our rank feud: But the just gods gainsay,
That any drop thou borrows't from thy mother,
Be drain'd! Let me embrace thee, Ajax:
My sacred aunt,17 should by my mortal sword
By him that thunders, thou hast lusty arms;
Hector would have them fall upon him thus:
Cousin, all honour to thee!

Thou art too gentle and too free a man :
Ajux.
I thank thee, Hector:
I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence
A great addition" earned in thy death.

Hect. Not Neoptolemus 19 so mirable
(On whose bright crest fame with her loud'st O yes
in other men.
excellence of having pride less than other pride, and
So that Hector is distinguished by the
valour more than other valour.

7 Ajax and Hector were cousins-german.

a mongrel.
8 Hence Thersites, in a former sceno, called Ajax

note 2, p. 168.
9 i. e a breathing, an exercise. See Act ii. Sc. 3.
10 Stops.

11 No boaster of his own deeds.

thought. Thus in Chapman's preface to his Shield of 12 An impair thought' is an unworthy or injurious Homer, 1598:- Nor is it more impaire to an honest and absolute man,' &c.

13 i. e. submits, yields.

14 Thus explain his character. So in Hamlet :-
'There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves
You must translate.'

15 Right.

16 Left.

17 It is remarkable that the Greeks give to the aunt this may lead us to conclude that this play was not the the father's sister, the title of sacred. Steevens says, entire composition of Shakspeare, to whom the Grecism was probably unknown.

18 See Act i. Sc. 2.

Achilles : finding that the son was Pyrrhus Neoptole 19 By Neoptolemus Shakspeare seems to have meant mus, he considered Neoptolemus as the nomen gentili

Like an Olympian wrestling: This have I seen;
But this thy countenance, still lock'd in steel,

Cries, This is he!) could promise to himself
A thought of added honour torn from Hector.
Ene. There is expectance here from both the I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire, 10

sides,

What further you will do.

Hect.
We'll answer it ;1
The issue is embracement :-Ajax, farewell.
Ajax. If I might in entreaties find success,
(As seld I have the chance,) I would desire
My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.

Dio. Tis Agamemnon's wish: and great Achilles
Doth long to see unarm'd the valiant Hector.

Hect. Eneas, call my brother Troilus to me:
And signify this loving interview

To the expecters of our Trojan part;
Desire them home.-Give me thy hand, my cousin ;
I will go eat with thee, and see your knights.2
Ajax. Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.
Hect. The worthiest of them tell me name by

name;

But for Achilles, my own searching eyes
Shall find him by his large and portly size.

Agam. 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 strew'd with
husks

And formless ruin of oblivion;

But in this extant moment, faith and troth,
Strain'd purely from all hollow bias-drawing,
Bids thee, with most divine integrity,
From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.
Hect. I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon.
Agam. My well-fam'd lord of Trov, no less to
[To TROILUS.
Men. Let me confirm my princely brother's
greeting;-

you.

You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.
Hect. Whom must we answer?
Men.

The noble Menelaus.' Hect. O you, my lord? by Mars his gauntlet, thanks!

Mock not, that I affect the untraded oath;
Your quondam wife swears still by Venus' glove:
She's well, but bade me not commend her to you.
Men. Name her not now, sir; she's a deadly

theme.

Hect. O, pardon; I offend.

Nest. I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft,
Labouring for destiny, make cruel way
Through ranks of Greekish youths: and I have
seen thee,

As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed,
Despising many forfeits and subduements,
When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i' the air,
Not letting it decline on the declin'd;"
That I have said to some 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 hemm'd thee in,

tium, and thought the father was likewise Achilles Neoptolemus. Or he was probably led into the error by some book of the time. By a passage in Act iii. Sc. 3, it is evident that he knew Pyrrhus had not yet engaged in the siege of Troy :

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.

Ene. 'Tis the old Nestor.

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

Nest. I would, my arms could match thee in con-
tention,

As they contend with thee in courtesy.
Hect. I would they could.

Nest. Ha!

By this white beard, I'd fight with thee to-morrow
Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time-
Ulyss. I wonder now how yonder city stands,
When we have here her base and pillar by us.

Hect. 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 Ilion, on your Greekish embassy.

Ulyss. 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,11
Must kiss their own feet.
Hect.
I must not believe you.
There they stand vet; 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.
Ulyss.
So to him we leave it.
Most gentle, and most valiant Hector, welcome :
After the general, I beseech you next
To feast with me, and see me at my tent.

Achil. I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses,
thou!12-

Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee;
have with exact view perus'd thee, Hector,
And quoted joint by joint.

Hect.

Is this Achilles?

Achil. I am Achilles.
Hect. Stand fair, I pray thee: let me look on thee.
Achil. Behold thy fill.

Hect.
Nay, I have done already.
Achil. Thou art too brief; I will the second time,
As I would buy thee, view thee limb by linab.

Hect. 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?

Achil. Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his
body

Shall I destroy him? whether there, 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!

6 Untraded is uncommon, unusual. So in King Richard 11: Some way of common trade,' for some usual course, or trodden way.

7 Destiny is the vicegerent of fate.

'But it must grieve young Pyrrhus, now at home,' &c.luded to, it should appear that in a former simile his

1 i. e. answer the expectance.

2 These knights, to the amount of about two hundred thousand, (for there were no less in both armies,) Shakspeare found with all the appendages of chivalry in The Old Troy Book. Eques and armiger, rendered knight and squire, excite ideas of chivalry. Pope, in his Homer, has been liberal in his use of the latter. 3 i. e. integrity like that of heaven.

8 As the equestrian fame of Perseus is here again alhorse was meant for a real one, and not allegorically for a ship. See Act i. Sc. 3.

9 i. e. the fallen.

10 Laomedon.

11 Thus in Shakspeare's Rape of Lucrece :

And it

"Threatening cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy.' Ilion, according to Shakspeare's authority, was the name of Priam's palace, that was one of the richest and strongest that ever was in all the world. 4 It has been asserted that imperious and imperial was of height five hundred paces, besides the height of had formerly the same signification, but so far is this the towers, whereof there was great plenty, and so high from being the fact, that Bullokar carefully distinguishes that it seemed to them that saw them from farre, they them: Imperial, royal or chief, emperor-like: im-raught up unto the heavens.'-Destruction of Troy. perious, that commandeth with authority, lord-like, stately,

6 Ritson thought that this speech belonged to Æneas, and indeed it seems hardly probable that Menelaus would be made to call himself the noble Menelaus.'

12 Mr. Tyrwhitt thought we should read:

'I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses, though!" 13 Quoted is noted, observed. The hint for this scene of altercation between Achilles and Hector is furnished by Lydgate.

Hect. Wert thou an 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 every where, 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;2 the general state, I fear,
Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.
Hect. I pray you, let us see you in the field;
We have had pelting wars, since you refus'd

The Grecians' cause.

Achil.

Dost thou entreat me, Hector?
To-morrow, do I meet thee, fell as death;
To-night, all friends.

Achil.

Enter THERSITES.

How now, thou core of envy?
Thou crusty batch' of nature, what's the news?
Ther. Why, thou picture of what thou seemest,
and idol of idiot-worshippers, here's a letter for thee.
Achil. From whence, fragment?

Ther. Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.
Patr. Who keeps the tent now ?8

Ther. The surgeon's box, or the patient's wound. Patr. Well said, Adversity!" and what need these tricks?

Ther. Pr'ythee be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk thou art thought to be Achilles' male varlet.

Patr. Male varlet,1° you rogue! what's that? Ther. Why, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o' gravel i' the back, letharThy hand upon that match.gies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, Agam. First, all you peers of Greece, go to my wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciati

Hect.

tent;

There in the full convive we: afterwards,
As Hector's leisure and your bounties shall
Concur together, severally entreat him.-
Beat loud the tabourines, let the trumpets blow,
That this great soldier may his welcome know.

[Exeunt all but TROILUS and ULYSSES.
Tro. My Lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,
In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?
Ulyss. At Menelaus' tent, most princely Troilus:
There Diomed doth feast with him to-night;
Who neither looks upon the heaven, nor earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.

Tro. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so
much,

After we part from Agamemnon's tent,
To bring me thither?
Ulyss.
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?

Tro. O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars,
A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord?
She was belov'd, she lov'd; she is, and doth:
But, still sweet love is food for fortune's tooth.

[Exeunt.

cas, lime kilns i' the palm, incurable bone-ach, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries!

Patr. Why thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus ? Ther. Do I curse thee?

Patr. Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur,

11 no.

Ther. No? why art thou then exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sleive12 silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered with such water-flies: 13 diminutives of nature! Patr. Out, gall!

Ther. Finch egg!

Achil. My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
From my great purpose in to-morrow's battle.
Here is a letter from queen Hecuba;

A token from her daughter, my fair love ;14
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. Ther. 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 fel

9 Adversity is here used for contrariety. The reply of Thersites having been studiously adverse to the drift of the question urged by Patroclus. So in Love's Labour's Lost, the Princess addressing Boyet, (who had been capriciously employing himself to perplex the dialogue,) says, 'Avaunt, Perplexity!

10 This expression is met with in Decker's Honest The Whore:-Tis a male varlet, sure, my lord! person spoken of is Bellafronte, a harlot, who is introduced in boy's clothes. Man-mistress is a term of reproach thrown out by Dorax, in Dryden's Don Sebastian. See Professor Heyne's Seventeenth Excursus on the first book of the Eneid.

11 Patroclus reproaches Thersites with deformity, with having one part crowded into another. The same idea occurs in the Second Part of King Henry IV. :'Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form.' 12 See Macbeth, Act ii. Sc. 2.

13 So Hamlet, speaking of Osrick:

'Dost know this water-fly"

14 This is a circumstance taken from the old story book of The Destruction of Troy.

SCENE II.

The same. Before Calchas' Tent.
Enter DIOMEDES.

Dio. What are you up here, ho? speak.
Cal. [Within.] Who calls?

Dio. Diomed.-Calchas, I think,-Where's your daughter?

Cal. [Within.] She comes to you.

Enter TROILUS and ULYSSES, at a distance; after them THERSITES.

Tro. I will be patient; outwardly I will.
Cres. You look upon that sleeve; Behold it
well.-

He loved me-O false wench!-Give't me again.
Dio. Who was't?
Cres.

No matter, now I have't again.
I will not meet with you to-morrow night:
I pr'ythee, Diomed, visit me no more.

Farewell till then.

Cres. Good night. I pr'ythee, come.

[Exit DIOMEDES.
Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee;
But with my heart the other eye doth see.'
Ah! poor our sex! this fault in us I find,
The error of our eye directs our mind:
What error leads, must err; O then conclude,
Minds, sway'd by eyes, are full of turpitude.
[Exu CRESSIDA.
Ther. A proof of strength, she could not publish

more,
Unless she said, My mind is now turn'd whore.
Ulyss. All's done, my lord.

It is.

Tro.
Ulyss.
Why stay we, then?
Tro. To make a recordation to my soul
Of every syllable that here was spoke.
But, if I tell how these two did co-act,
Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?
Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,

Ther. Now she sharpens :-Well said, whet- An esperance so obstinately strong,

stone.

Dio. I shall have it.

Cres.

Dio.

What, this?

Ay, that.
Cres. O, all you gods!--O pretty pretty pledge!
Thy master now lies thinking in his bed
Of thee, and me; and sighs, and takes my glove,
And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,
As I kiss thee.--Nay, do not snatch it from me;
He, that takes that, must take my heart withal.
Dio. I had your heart before, this follows it.
Tro. I did swear patience.

Cres. You shall not have it, Diomed; 'faith you
shall not;

I'll give you something else.

Dio. I will have this; Whose was it?
Cres.

'Tis no matter.

Dio. Come, tell me whose it was.
Cres. 'Twas one's that loved me better than you
will.

But, now you have it, take it.

Dio.
Whose was it?
Cres. By all Diana's waiting-women yonder,*
And by herself, I will not tell you whose.

Dio. To-morrow will I wear it on my helm;
And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.
Tro. Wert thou the devil, and wor'st it on thy
horn,
It should be challeng'd.

1 To palter is to equivocate, to shuffle. Thus in Macbeth:

"That palter with us in a double sense.' Luxuria was the appropriate term of the old school divines for the sin of incontinence, which is accordingly called luxury by all our old English writers. The degrees of this sin and its partitions are enumerated by Richard Rolle, the Hermit of Hampole, in his Speculum Vite, MS. penes me. And Chaucer, in his Parson's Tale, makes it one of the seven deadly sins. Luxury, or lasciviousness, is said to have a potatoe-finger, because that root was thought to strengthen the bodie, and procure bodily lust.'

It

3 This sleeve was given by Troilus to Cressida at their parting, and she gave him a glove in return. was probably such a sleeve as was formerly worn at tournaments: one of which Spenser describes in his View of the State of Ireland, p. 43, ed. 1663.

That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears;
As if those organs had deceptious functions,
Created only to calumniate.
Was Cressid here?

Ulyss.

I cannot conjure, Trojan.
Tro. She was not, sure.
Ulyss. Most sure she was.

Tro. Why, my negation hath no taste of mad

ness.

Ulyss. Nor mine, my lord: Cressid was here but

now.

Tro. Let it not be believ'd for womanhood!"
Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage
To stubborn critics"-apt, without a theme,
For depravation,-to square the general sex
By Cressid's rule: rather think this not Cressid.
Ulyss. What hath she done, prince, that can soil
our mothers?

Tro. Nothing at all, unless that this were she.
Ther. Will he swagger himself out on's own eyes?
Tro. This she? no, this is Diomed's Cressida :
If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,
If sanctimony be the gods' delight,
If there be rule in unity itself,10

This was not she. O madness of discourse,
That cause sets up with and against itself!
Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt
4 i. e. the stars which she points to.

The silver-shining queen he would disdain;
Her twinkling hand-maids too, by him defil'd,
Through Night's black bosom should not peep again.'
5 The characters of Cressida and Pandarus are more
immediately formed from Chaucer than from Lydgate;
for though the latter mentions them both characteristi
cally, he does not sufficiently dwell on either to have
furnished Shakspeare with many circumstances to be
found in this tragedy.

6 She could not publish a stronger proof.

7 i. e. turns the very testimony of seeing and hearing against themselves.

8 For the sake of womanhood.

9 Critic has here probably the signification of cynic. So Iago says in Othello:

"I am nothing if not critical.

10 If it be true that one individual cannot be two distinct persons.

11 The folio reads By foul authority,' &c. There is