Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: William Godshalk
Peer Reviewed

Troilus and Cressida (Folio 1, 1623)

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
Troylus and Cressida.
Before the belching Whale; then is he yonder,
And there the straying Greekes, ripe for his edge,
Fall downe before him, like the mowers swath;
Here, there, and euery where, he leaues and takes;
3400Dexteritie so obaying appetite,
That what he will, he does, and does so much,
That proofe is call'd impossibility.
Enter Vlisses.
Ulis. Oh, courage, courage Princes: great Achilles
3405Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance;
Patroclus wounds haue rouz'd his drowzie bloud,
Together with his mangled Myrmidons,
That noselesse, handlesse, hackt and chipt, come to him;
Crying on Hector. Aiax hath lost a friend,
3410And foames at mouth, and he is arm'd, and at it:
Roaring for Troylus; who hath done to day.
Mad and fantasticke execution;
Engaging and redeeming of himselfe,
With such a carelesse force, and forcelesse care,
3415As if that luck in very spight of cunning, bad him win all.
Enter Aiax.
Aia. Troylus, thou coward Troylus. Exit.
Dio. I, there, there.
Nest. So, so, we draw together. Exit.
3420Enter Achilles.
Achil. Where is this Hector?
Come, come, thou boy-queller, shew thy face:
Know what it is to meete Achilles angry.
Hector, wher's Hector? I will none but Hector. Exit.