The History of Troilus and Cressida, William Shakespeare [interesting books to read for teens TXT] 📗

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

PRIAM, King of Troy

His sons:
HECTOR
TROILUS
PARIS
DEIPHOBUS
HELENUS
MARGARELON, a bastard son of Priam

Trojan commanders:
AENEAS
ANTENOR

CALCHAS, a Trojan priest, taking part with the Greeks
PANDARUS, uncle to Cressida
AGAMEMNON, the Greek general
MENELAUS, his brother

Greek commanders:
ACHILLES
AJAX
ULYSSES
NESTOR
DIOMEDES
PATROCLUS

THERSITES, a deformed and scurrilous Greek
ALEXANDER, servant to Cressida
SERVANT to Troilus
SERVANT to Paris
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


PROLOGUE

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, 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 the 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 war-like fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,
Dardan, and Tymbria, Ilias, 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 1. Troy. Before PRIAM'S palace

[Enter TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS.]

TROILUS.
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 Trojan that is master of his heart,
Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.

PANDARUS.
Will this gear ne'er be mended?

TROILUS.
The Greeks are strong, and skilful 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 unpractis'd infancy.

PANDARUS.
Well, I have told you enough of this; for my part, I'll not
meddle nor make no further. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding.

TROILUS.
Have I not tarried?

PANDARUS.
Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.

TROILUS.
Have I not tarried?

PANDARUS.
Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.

TROILUS.
Still have I tarried.

PANDARUS.
Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word 'hereafter' the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.

TROILUS.
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! 'when she comes'! when she is thence?

PANDARUS.
Well, she look'd yesternight fairer than ever I saw her
look, or any woman else.

TROILUS.
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 storm,
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.

PANDARUS.
An 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 -

TROILUS.
O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,
When I do tell thee there my hopes lie drown'd,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad
In Cressid's love. Thou answer'st 'She is fair';
Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,
Handlest 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, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.

PANDARUS.
I speak no more than truth.

TROILUS.
Thou dost not speak so much.

PANDARUS.
Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is: if
she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.

TROILUS.
Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus!

PANDARUS.
I have had my labour for my travail, ill thought on of
her and ill thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour.

TROILUS.
What! art thou angry, Pandarus? What! with me?

PANDARUS.
Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as
Helen. An she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday
as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a
blackamoor; 'tis all one to me.

TROILUS.
Say I she is not fair?

PANDARUS.
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' the matter.

TROILUS.
Pandarus

PANDARUS.
Not I.

TROILUS.
Sweet Pandarus -

PANDARUS.
Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all
as I found it, and there an end.

[Exit PANDARUS. An alarum.]

TROILUS.
Peace, you ungracious clamours! Peace, rude sounds!
Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starv'd a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus, O gods! how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl;
Between our Ilium and where she resides
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.

[Alarum. Enter AENEAS.]

AENEAS.
How now, Prince Troilus! Wherefore not afield?

TROILUS.
Because not there. This woman's answer sorts,
For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, Aeneas, from the field to-day?

AENEAS.
That Paris is returned home, and hurt.

TROILUS.
By whom, Aeneas?

AENEAS.
Troilus, by Menelaus.

TROILUS.
Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a scar to scorn;
Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn.

[Alarum.]

AENEAS.
Hark what good sport is out of town to-day!

TROILUS.
Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may.'
But to the sport abroad. Are you bound thither?

AENEAS.
In all swift haste.

TROILUS.
Come, go we then together. [Exeunt.]


ACT I.

SCENE 2. Troy. A street

[Enter CRESSIDA and her man ALEXANDER.]

CRESSIDA.
Who were those went by?

ALEXANDER.
Queen Hecuba and Helen.

CRESSIDA.
And whither go they?

ALEXANDER.
Up to the eastern tower,
Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is as a virtue fix'd, to-day was mov'd.
He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harness'd light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.

CRESSIDA.
What was his cause of anger?

ALEXANDER.
The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks
A lord of Troyan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him Ajax.

CRESSIDA.
Good; and what of him?

ALEXANDER.
They say he is a very man per se,
And stands alone.

CRESSIDA.
So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

ALEXANDER.
This man, lady, hath robb'd many beasts of their particular
additions: he is as valiant as a lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant - a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crush'd into folly, his folly sauced with discretion. There is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it; he is melancholy without cause and merry against the hair; he hath the joints of every thing; but everything so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

CRESSIDA.
But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry?

ALEXANDER.
They say he yesterday cop'd Hector in the battle and
struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.

[Enter PANDARUS.]

CRESSIDA.
Who comes here?

ALEXANDER.
Madam, your uncle Pandarus.

CRESSIDA.
Hector's a gallant man.

ALEXANDER.
As may be in the world, lady.

PANDARUS.
What's that? What's that?

CRESSIDA.
Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

PANDARUS.
Good morrow, cousin Cressid. What do you talk of? - Good
morrow, Alexander. - How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?

CRESSIDA.
This morning, uncle.

PANDARUS.
What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector arm'd
and gone ere you came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?

CRESSIDA.
Hector was gone; but Helen was not up.

PANDARUS.
E'en so. Hector was stirring early.

CRESSIDA.
That were we talking of, and of his anger.

PANDARUS.
Was he angry?

CRESSIDA.
So he says here.

PANDARUS.
True, he was so; I know the cause too; he'll lay about
him today, I can tell them that. And there's Troilus will not
come far behind him; let them take heed of Troilus, I can tell
them that too.

CRESSIDA.
What, is he angry too?

PANDARUS.
Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.

CRESSIDA.
O Jupiter! there's no comparison.

PANDARUS.
What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man
if you see him?

CRESSIDA.
Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him.

PANDARUS.
Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.

CRESSIDA.