Internet Shakespeare Editions

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  • Title: Troilus and Cressida (Modern)
  • Editor: William Godshalk
  • ISBN: 1-55058-301-8

    Copyright Internet Shakespeare Editions. This text may be freely used for educational, non-proift purposes; for all other uses contact the Coordinating Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: William Godshalk
    Peer Reviewed

    Troilus and Cressida (Modern)

    3370.1[5.5]
    Enter Diomed and servants.
    Diomed
    Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus's horse;
    Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid.
    Fellow, commend my service to her beauty;
    3375Tell her, I have chastised the amorous Trojan,
    And am her knight by proof.
    Servant
    I go, my lord.
    [Exit.]
    Enter Agamemnon.
    Agamemnon
    Renew, renew. The fierce Polidamus
    Hath beat down Menon; bastard Margarelon
    3380Hath Doreus prisoner,
    And stands Colossus-wise waving his beam
    Upon the pashèd corpses of the kings
    Epistropus and Cedus. Polixines is slain,
    Amphimacus and Thous deadly hurt,
    3385Patroclus ta'en or slain, and Palamedes
    Sore hurt and bruised. The dreadful Sagittary
    Appalls our numbers. Haste we, Diomed,
    To reinforcement, or we perish all.
    Enter Nestor [with soldiers bearing Patroclus' body.]
    3390Nestor
    [To Greek soldiers] Go bear Patroclus' body to Achilles,
    And bid the snail-paced Ajax arm for shame.
    [Exeunt some soldiers with Patroclus' body.]
    There is a thousand Hectors in the field.
    Now here he fights on Galathe his horse,
    And there lacks work. Anon he's there afoot,
    3395And there they fly or die, like scalèd shoals
    Before the belching whale; then is he yonder,
    And there the straying Greeks, ripe for his edge,
    Fall down before him like the mower's swathe;
    Here, there, and everywhere, he leaves and takes,
    3400Dexterity so obeying appetite
    That what he will, he does, and does so much
    That proof is called impossibility.
    Enter Ulysses.
    Ulysses
    Oh, courage, courage, princes. Great Achilles
    3405Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance;
    Patroclus' wounds have roused his drowsy blood
    Together with his mangled Myrmidons,
    That noseless, handless, hacked, and chipped, come to him,
    Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend,
    3410And foams at mouth, and he is armed and at it,
    Roaring for Troilus, who hath done today
    Mad and fantastic execution,
    Engaging and redeeming of himself
    With such a careless force and forceless care
    3415As if that luck, in very spite of cunning,
    Bade him win all.
    Enter Ajax.
    Troilus, thou coward, Troilus.
    Exit [Ajax].
    Diomed
    Ay, there, there.
    Nestor
    So, so, we draw together.
    Exit [Diomed with Nestor].
    3420Enter Achilles.
    Achilles
    Where is this Hector?
    Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face.
    Know what it is to meet Achilles angry.
    Hector. Where's Hector? I will none but Hector.
    Exit.