Internet Shakespeare Editions

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.