Toolbox



Textual Analysis

[ Go ]

Shakespeare on Stage
Folger Shakespeare Library, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 9, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Love's Labour's Lost. To Jun. 15, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 16, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, The Duchess of Malfi. To Jun. 15, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Return to the Forbidden Planet. To Dec. 1, 2013.
More Performances…
‌

Troilus and Cressida (Folio 1, 1623)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: W. L. Godshalk
Peer Reviewed
Troylus and Cressida.
Fall all together.
Priam. Come Hector, come, goe backe:
3270Thy wife hath dreampt: thy mother hath had visions;
Cassandra doth foresee; and I my selfe,
Am like a Prophet suddenly enrapt,
to tell thee that this day is ominous:
Therefore come backe.
3275Hect. Æneas is a field,
And I do stand engag'd to many Greekes,
Euen in the faith of valour, to appeare
This morning to them.
Priam. I, but thou shalt not goe,
3280Hect. I must not breake my faith:
You know me dutifull, therefore deare sir,
Let me not shame respect; but giue me leaue
To take that course by your consent and voice,
Which you doe here forbid me, Royall Priam.
3285Cass. O Priam, yeelde not to him.
And. Doe not deere father.
Hect. Andromache I am offended with you:
Vpon the loue you beare me, get you in.
Exit Andromache.
3290Troy. This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girle,
Makes all these bodements.
Cass. O farewell, deere Hector:
Looke how thou diest; looke how thy eye turnes pale:
Looke how thy wounds doth bleede at many vents:
3295Harke how Troy roares; how Hecuba cries out;
How poore Andromache shrils her dolour forth;
Behold distraction, frenzie, and amazement,
Like witlesse Antickes one another meete,
And all cry Hector, Hectors dead: O Hector!
3300Troy. Away, away.
Cas. Farewell: yes, soft: Hector I take my leaue;
Thou do'st thy selfe, and all our Troy deceiue.
Exit.
Hect. You are amaz'd, my Liege, at her exclaime:
Goe in and cheere the Towne, weele forth and fight:
3305Doe deedes of praise, and tell you them at night.
Priam. Farewell: the gods with safetie stand about
thee.
Alarum.
Troy. They are at it, harke: proud Diomed, beleeue
I come to loose my arme, or winne my sleeue.

3310
Enter Pandar.

Pand. Doe you heare my Lord? do you heare?
Troy. What now?
Pand. Here's a Letter come from yond poore girle.
Troy. Let me reade.
3315Pand. A whorson tisicke, a whorson rascally tisicke,
so troubles me; and the foolish fortune of this girle, and
what one thing, what another, that I shall leaue you one
o'th's dayes: and I haue a rheume in mine eyes too; and
such an ache in my bones; that vnlesse a man were curst,
3320I cannot tell what to thinke on't. What sayes shee
there?
Troy. Words, words, meere words, no matter from
the heart;
Th'effect doth operate another way.
3325Goe winde to winde, there turne and change together:
My loue with words and errors still she feedes;
But edifies another with her deedes.
Pand. Why, but heare you?
Troy. Hence brother lackie; ignomie and shame
3330Pursue thy life, and liue aye with thy name.
ALarum. Exeunt.

Enter Thersites in excursion.

Ther. Now they are clapper-clawing one another, Ile
goe looke on: that dissembling abhominable varlet Dio-
3335mede, has got that same scuruie, doting, foolish yong
knaues Sleeue of Troy, there in his Helme: I would faine
see them meet; that, that same yong Troian asse, that loues
the whore there, might send that Greekish whore-mai-
sterly villaine, with the Sleeue, backe to the dissembling
3340luxurious drabbe, of a sleeuelesse errant. O'th'tother side,
the pollicie of those craftie swearing rascals; that stole
old Mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor: and that same dog-
foxe Vlisses is not prou'd worth a Black-berry. They set
me vp in pollicy, that mungrill curre Aiax, against that
3345dogge of as bad a kinde, Achilles. And now is the curre
Aiax prouder then the curre Achilles, and will not arme
to day. Whereupon, the Grecians began to proclaime
barbarisme; and pollicie growes into an ill opinion.
Enter Diomed and Troylus.
3350Soft, here comes Sleeue, and th'other.
Troy. Flye not: for should'st thou take the Riuer Stix,
I would swim after.
Diom. Thou do'st miscall retire:
I doe not flye; but aduantagious care
3355Withdrew me from the oddes of multitude:
Haue at thee?
Ther. Hold thy whore Grecian: now for thy whore
Troian: Now the Sleeue, now the Sleeue.
Euter Hector.
3360Hect. What art thou Greek? art thou for Hectors match?
Art thou of bloud, and honour?
Ther. No, no: I am a rascall: a scuruie railing knaue:
a very filthy roague.
Hect. I doe beleeue thee, liue.
3365Ther. God a mercy, that thou wilt beleeue me; but a
plague breake thy necke---for frighting me: what's be-
come of the wenching rogues? I thinke they haue
swallowed one another. I would laugh at that mira-
cle----yet in a sort, lecherie eates it selfe: Ile seeke them.
3370
Exit.
Enter Diomed and Seruants.
Dio. Goe, goe, my seruant, take thou Troylus Horse;
Present the faire Steede to my Lady Cressid:
Fellow, commend my seruice to her beauty;
3375Tell her, I haue chastis'd the amorous Troyan.
And am her Knight by proofe.
Ser. I goe my Lord.
Enter Agamemnon.
Aga. Renew, renew, the fierce Polidamus
Hath beate downe Menon: bastard Margarelon
3380Hath Doreus prisoner.
And stands Calossus-wise wauing his beame,
Vpon the pashed courses of the Kings:
Epistropus and Cedus, Polixines is slaine;
Amphimacus, and Thous deadly hurt;
3385Patroclus tane or slaine, and Palamedes
Sore hurt and bruised; the dreadfull Sagittary
Appauls our numbers, haste we Diomed
To re-enforcement, or we perish all.
Enter Nestor.
3390Nest. Coe beare Patroclus body to Achilles,
And bid the snaile-pac'd Aiax arme for shame;
There is a thousand Hectors in the field:
Now here he fights on Galathe his Horse,
And there lacks worke: anon he's there a foote,
3395And there they flye or dye, like scaled sculs,
Before