Internet Shakespeare Editions

Toolbox




Jump to line
Help on texts

About this text

  • Title: Troilus and Cressida (Quarto 1, 1609)
  • 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 (Quarto 1, 1609)

    of Troylus and Cresseida.
    His crest that prouder then blew Iris bends,
    If the dull brainlesse Aiax come safe off
    Weele dresse him vp in voices, if he faile
    850Yet go we vnder our opinion still,
    That we haue better men, but hit or misse,
    Our proiects life this shape of sence assumes
    Aiax imploy'd plucks downe Achilles plumes.
    Nest. Now Vlisses I begin to relish thy aduise,
    855And I will giue a taste thereof forthwith,
    To Agamemnon, go we to him straight
    Two curres shall tame each other, pride alone
    Must arre the mastiffs on, as twere a bone. Exeunt.
    Enter Aiax and Thersites.
    860Aiax. Thersites.
    Ther. Agamemnon, how if he had biles, full, all ouer, gene-
    rally. Aiax. Thersites.
    Ther: And those byles did run (say so), did not the gene-
    865rall run then, were not that a botchy core. Aiax. Dogge.
    Ther. Then would come some matter from him, I see none
    now.
    Aia: Thou bitchwolfs son canst thou not heare, feele then.
    Ther. The plague of Greece vpon thee thou mongrell beefe
    witted Lord.
    Aiax. Speake then thou vnsalted leauen, speake, I will beate
    thee into hansomnesse.
    875Ther. I shall sooner raile thee into wit and holinesse, but I
    thinke thy horse will sooner cunne an oration without
    booke, then thou learne praier without booke, thou canst
    strike canst thou? a red murrion ath thy Iades trickes.
    Aiax. Tode-stoole? learne me the proclamation.
    880Ther: Doost thou thinke I haue no sence thou strikest mee
    thus? Aiax. The proclamation.
    Ther: Thou art proclaim'd foole I thinke.
    Aiax. Do not Porpentin, do not, my fingers itch:
    Ther. I would thou didst itch from head to foote, and I had
    885the scratching of the, I would make thee the lothsomest scab
    in Greece, when thou art forth in the incursions thou strikest
    886.1as slow as another.
    Aiax: