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  • 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)

    The history
    Will with a trumpet twixt our Tents and Troy,
    To morrow morning call some Knight to armes,
    That hath a stomack, and such a one that dare,
    Maintaine I know not what, (tis trash) farewell-------
    980Aiax. Farewell, who shall answer him.
    Achil. I know not, tis put to lottry, otherwise,
    He knew his man.
    Aiax. O meaning you? I will go learne more of it.
    Enter Priam, Hector, Troylus, Paris and Helenus.
    985Priam. After so many houres, liues, speeches spent,
    Thus once againe saies Nestor from the Greckes:
    Deliuer Hellen, (and all domage els,
    As honour, losse of time, trauell, expence,
    Wounds, friends and what els deere that is consum'd:
    990In hot digestion of this cormorant warre)
    Shalbe stroke off, Hector what say you to't?
    Hect: Though no man lesser feares the Greekes then I
    As farre as toucheth my particular: yet dread Priam
    There is no Lady of more softer bowells,
    995More spungy to suck in the sence of feare:
    More ready to cry out, who knowes what followes
    Then Hector is: the wound of peace is surely
    Surely secure, but modest doubt is calld
    The beacon of the wise, the tent that serches,
    1000Too'th bottome of the worst let Hellen go,
    Since the first sword was drawne about this question
    Euery tith soule 'mongst many thousand dismes,
    Hath beene as deere as Hellen. I meane of ours:
    If we haue loste so many tenthes of ours,
    1005To guard a thing not ours, nor worth to vs,
    (Had it our name) the valew of one ten,
    What merits in that reason which denies,
    The yeelding of her vp?
    Troy. Fie, fie, my brother,
    1010Way you the worth and honour of a King:
    So great as our dread fathers in a scale
    Of common ounces? will you with Compters summe,
    The past proportion of his infinite
    And
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