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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
    Troy. Let Paris bleed tis but a scar to scorne,
    Paris is gor'd with Menelaus horne. Alarum.
    150AEne. Harke what good sport is out of towne to day.
    Troy. Better at home, if would I might were may:
    But to the sport abrode are you bound thither?
    AEne. In all swift hast.
    Troy. Come goe wee then togither. Exeunt.
    155Enter Cressid and her man.
    Cres. Who were those went by?
    Man. Queene Hecuba, and Hellen.
    Cres. And whether goe they?
    Man. Vp to the Easterne tower,
    160Whose hight commands as subiect all the vaile,
    To see the battell: Hector whose pacience,
    Is as a vertue fixt, to day was mou'd:
    Hee chid Andromache and strooke his armorer,
    And like as there were husbandry in warre
    165Before the Sunne rose, hee was harnest lyte,
    And to the field goes he; where euery flower
    Did as a Prophet weepe what it foresawe,
    In Hectors wrath. Cres. What was his cause of anger.
    170Man. The noise goes this, there is amonge the Greekes,
    A Lord of Troian bloud, Nephew to Hector,
    They call him Aiax. Cres.Good; and what of him.
    175Man. They say hee is a very man per se and stands alone.
    Cres. So do all men vnlesse the are dronke, sicke, or haue no
    legges.
    Man. This man Lady, hath rob'd many beasts of their par-
    ticular additions, hee is as valiant as the Lyon, churlish as
    180the Beare, slowe as the Elephant: a man into whome nature
    hath so crowded humors, that his valour is crusht into folly,
    his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a ver-
    tue, that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any an attaint, but
    he carries some staine of it. Hee is melancholy without cause
    185and merry against the haire, hee hath the ioynts of euery
    thing, but euery thing so out of ioynt, that hee is a gowtie
    Briareus, many hands, & no vse: or purblinde Argus, al eyes,
    and no sight.
    Cres.