ACT 1
Scene 3

...mine eyes appear.
Sennet. Enter Agamemnon, Nestor, Ulysses, Diomedes, Menelaus, with others.

...to chiding Fortune.
Agamemnon,
Thou great commander, nerves and bone of Greece,
Heart of our numbers, soul and only sprite,
In whom the tempers and the minds of all
Should be shut up, hear what Ulysses speaks.
Besides th’ applause and approbation,
The which, (to Agamemnon)
most mighty for thy place and sway,
(To Nestor)
And thou most reverend for thy stretched-out life,
I give to both your speeches, which were such
As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece
Should hold up high in brass; and such again
As venerable Nestor, hatched in silver,
Should with a bond of air, strong as the axletree
On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears
To his experienced tongue, yet let it please both,
Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.

...wit, and oracle.
Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
And the great Hector’s sword had lacked a master
But for these instances:
The specialty of rule hath been neglected,
And look how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive
To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
Th’ unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order.
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other, whose med’cinable eye
Corrects the influence of evil planets,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,
What raging of the sea, shaking of Earth,
Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder of all high designs,
The enterprise is sick. How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogeneity and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, scepters, laurels,
But by degree stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows. Each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe;
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead;
Force should be right, or, rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides,
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then everything includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite,
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.
And this neglection of degree it is
That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The General’s disdained
By him one step below, he by the next,
That next by him beneath; so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation.
And ’tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.

...is the remedy?
The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns
The sinew and the forehand of our host,
Having his ear full of his airy fame,
Grows dainty of his worth and in his tent
Lies mocking our designs. With him Patroclus,
Upon a lazy bed, the live-long day
Breaks scurril jests,
And with ridiculous and silly action,
Which, slanderer, he imitation calls,
He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,
Thy topless deputation he puts on,
And, like a strutting player whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
’Twixt his stretched footing and the scaffollage,
Such to-be-pitied and o’erwrested seeming
He acts thy greatness in; and when he speaks,
’Tis like a chime a-mending, with terms unsquared
Which from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropped
Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff,
The large Achilles, on his pressed bed lolling,
From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause,
Cries “Excellent! ’Tis Agamemnon right.
Now play me Nestor; hem and stroke thy beard,
As he being dressed to some oration.”
That’s done, as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels, as like as Vulcan and his wife;
Yet god Achilles still cries “Excellent!
’Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus,
Arming to answer in a night alarm.”
And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age
Must be the scene of mirth—to cough and spit,
And, with a palsy fumbling on his gorget,
Shake in and out the rivet. And at this sport
Sir Valor dies, cries “O, enough, Patroclus,
Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all
In pleasure of my spleen.” And in this fashion,
All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,
Severals and generals of grace exact,
Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,
Excitements to the field, or speech for truce,
Success or loss, what is or is not, serves
As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.

...in with danger.
They tax our policy and call it cowardice,
Count wisdom as no member of the war,
Forestall prescience, and esteem no act
But that of hand. The still and mental parts
That do contrive how many hands shall strike
When fitness calls them on and know by measure
Of their observant toil the enemy’s weight—
Why, this hath not a fingers dignity.
They call this bed-work, mapp’ry, closet war;
So that the ram that batters down the wall,
For the great swinge and rudeness of his poise,
They place before his hand that made the engine
Or those that with the fineness of their souls
By reason guide his execution.

...scarcity of youth!
Amen.

...a noble foe.
Nestor.

...What says Ulysses?
I have a young conception in my brain;
Be you my time to bring it to some shape.

...What is ’t?
This ’tis:
Blunt wedges rive hard knots; the seeded pride
That hath to this maturity blown up
In rank Achilles must or now be cropped
Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil
To overbulk us all.

...Well, and how?
This challenge that the gallant Hector sends,
However it is spread in general name,
Relates in purpose only to Achilles.

...Pointing on him.
And wake him to the answer, think you?

...by the limbs.
Give pardon to my speech: therefore ’tis meet
Achilles meet not Hector. Let us like merchants
First show foul wares and think perchance they’ll sell;
If not, the luster of the better shall exceed
By showing the worse first. Do not consent
That ever Hector and Achilles meet,
For both our honor and our shame in this
Are dogged with two strange followers.

...What are they?
What glory our Achilles shares from Hector,
Were he not proud, we all should share with him;
But he already is too insolent,
And it were better parch in Afric sun
Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes
Should he scape Hector fair. If he were foiled,
Why then we do our main opinion crush
In taint of our best man. No, make a lott’ry,
And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw
The sort to fight with Hector. Among ourselves
Give him allowance for the better man,
For that will physic the great Myrmidon,
Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall
His crest that prouder than blue Iris bends.
If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off,
We’ll dress him up in voices; if he fail,
Yet go we under our opinion still
That we have better men. But, hit or miss,
Our project’s life this shape of sense assumes:
Ajax employed plucks down Achilles’ plumes.

...’twere a bone.
They exit.

ACT 2
Scene 3

...me thou art.
Enter at a distance Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Diomedes, Ajax, and Calchas.

...so to him.
We saw him at the opening of his tent.
He is not sick.

...bay at him?
Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him.

... Who, Thersites?
He.

...lost his argument.
No. You see, he is his argument that has his
argument: Achilles.

...fool could disunite.
The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may
easily untie.

Enter Patroclus.
Here comes Patroclus.

...Achilles with him.
The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy;
his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.

...him.—Ulysses, enter you.
Ulysses exits, with Patroclus.

...’t not strange?
Enter Ulysses.
Achilles will not to the field tomorrow.

...What’s his excuse?
He doth rely on none,
But carries on the stream of his dispose,
Without observance or respect of any,
In will peculiar and in self-admission.

...air with us?
Things small as nothing, for request’s sake only,
He makes important. Possessed he is with greatness
And speaks not to himself but with a pride
That quarrels at self-breath. Imagined worth
Holds in his blood such swoll’n and hot discourse
That ’twixt his mental and his active parts
Kingdomed Achilles in commotion rages
And batters down himself. What should I say?
He is so plaguy proud that the death-tokens of it
Cry “No recovery.”

...little from himself.
O Agamemnon, let it not be so!
We’ll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes
When they go from Achilles. Shall the proud lord
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts, save such as doth revolve
And ruminate himself—shall he be worshipped
Of that we hold an idol more than he?
No. This thrice-worthy and right valiant lord
Shall not so stale his palm, nobly acquired,
Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,
As amply titled as Achilles is,
By going to Achilles.
That were to enlard his fat-already pride
And add more coals to Cancer when he burns
With entertaining great Hyperion.
This lord go to him? Jupiter forbid
And say in thunder “Achilles, go to him.”

...go to him.
Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.

...not be sociable?
aside
The raven chides blackness.

...of my mind—
aside
Wit would be out of fashion.

...you’d carry half.
aside
He would have ten shares.

...ambition is dry.
to Agamemnon
My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.

...fight without Achilles.
Why, ’tis this naming of him does him harm.
Here is a man—but ’tis before his face;
I will be silent.

...as Achilles is.
Know the whole world, he is as valiant—

...in Ajax now—
If he were proud—

...covetous of praise—
Ay, or surly borne—

...strange, or self-affected—
to Ajax
Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure.
Praise him that gat thee, she that gave thee suck;
Famed be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature
Thrice famed beyond, beyond thy erudition;
But he that disciplined thine arms to fight,
Let Mars divide eternity in twain
And give him half; and for thy vigor,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield
To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,
Which like a bourn, a pale, a shore confines
Thy spacious and dilated parts. Here’s Nestor,
Instructed by the antiquary times;
He must, he is, he cannot but be wise.—
But pardon, father Nestor, were your days
As green as Ajax’ and your brain so tempered,
You should not have the eminence of him,
But be as Ajax.

...him, Lord Ajax.
There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles
Keeps thicket. Please it our great general
To call together all his state of war.
Fresh kings are come to Troy. Tomorrow
We must with all our main of power stand fast.
And here’s a lord—come knights from east to west
And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.

...hulks draw deep.
They exit.

ACT 3
Scene 3

...provide this gear.
Flourish. Enter Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, Agamemnon, Calchas, Menelaus, and Ajax.

...in their tent.
Achilles stands i’ th’ entrance of his tent.
Please it our General pass strangely by him
As if he were forgot, and, princes all,
Lay negligent and loose regard upon him.
I will come last. ’Tis like he’ll question me
Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turned on him.
If so, I have derision medicinable
To use between your strangeness and his pride,
Which his own will shall have desire to drink.
It may do good; pride hath no other glass
To show itself but pride, for supple knees
Feed arrogance and are the proud man’s fees.

...lead the way.
They pass before Achilles and Patroclus. Ulysses remains in place, reading.

...reading.—How now, Ulysses?
Now, great Thetis’ son—

...are you reading?
A strange fellow here
Writes me that man, how dearly ever parted,
How much in having, or without or in,
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues, shining upon others,
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.

...strange at all.
I do not strain at the position—
It is familiar—but at the author’s drift,
Who in his circumstance expressly proves
That no man is the lord of anything—
Though in and of him there be much consisting—
Till he communicate his parts to others;
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
Till he behold them formed in the applause
Where they’re extended; who, like an arch, reverb’rate
The voice again or, like a gate of steel
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this
And apprehended here immediately
Th’ unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there!
A very horse, that has he knows not what!
Nature, what things there are
Most abject in regard, and dear in use,
What things again most dear in the esteem
And poor in worth! Now shall we see tomorrow—
An act that very chance doth throw upon him—
Ajax renowned. O, heavens, what some men do
While some men leave to do!
How some men creep in skittish Fortune’s hall,
Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another’s pride,
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords—why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder
As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast
And great Troy shrieking.

...my deeds forgot?
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes.
Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honor bright. To have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion like a rusty mail
In monumental mock’ry. Take the instant way,
For honor travels in a strait so narrow
Where one but goes abreast. Keep, then, the path,
For Emulation hath a thousand sons
That one by one pursue. If you give way
Or turn aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an entered tide they all rush by
And leave you hindmost;
Or, like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O’errun and trampled on. Then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o’ertop yours;
For Time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’ hand
And, with his arms outstretched as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer. Welcome ever smiles,
And Farewell goes out sighing. Let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was,
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity are subjects all
To envious and calumniating Time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
That all, with one consent, praise newborn gauds,
Though they are made and molded of things past,
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o’erdusted.
The present eye praises the present object.
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax,
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
Than what stirs not. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might, and yet it may again,
If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive
And case thy reputation in thy tent,
Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of late
Made emulous missions ’mongst the gods themselves
And drave great Mars to faction.

...have strong reasons.
But ’gainst your privacy
The reasons are more potent and heroical.
’Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love
With one of Priam’s daughters.

... Ha? Known?
Is that a wonder?
The providence that’s in a watchful state
Knows almost every grain of Pluto’s gold,
Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deep,
Keeps place with thought and almost, like the gods,
Do thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
There is a mystery—with whom relation
Durst never meddle—in the soul of state,
Which hath an operation more divine
Than breath or pen can give expressure to.
All the commerce that you have had with Troy
As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;
And better would it fit Achilles much
To throw down Hector than Polyxena.
But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home
When Fame shall in our islands sound her trump,
And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing
“Great Hector’s sister did Achilles win,
But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.”
Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak.
The fool slides o’er the ice that you should break.
He exits.

ACT 4
Scene 5

...and single chivalry.
Enter Ajax, armed, Achilles, Patroclus, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Ulysses, Nestor, etc. and Trumpeter.

...for Hector.Sound trumpet.
No trumpet answers.

...with Calchas’ daughter?
’Tis he. I ken the manner of his gait.
He rises on the toe; that spirit of his
In aspiration lifts him from the earth.

...with a kiss.
Yet is the kindness but particular.
’Twere better she were kissed in general.

...He kisses her.
O deadly gall and theme of all our scorns,
For which we lose our heads to gild his horns!

...I’ll be sworn.
It were no match, your nail against his horn.
May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?

... You may.
I do desire it.

...Why, beg two.
Why, then, for Venus’ sake, give me a kiss
When Helen is a maid again and his.

...when ’tis due.
Never’s my day, and then a kiss of you.

...of quick sense.
Fie, fie upon her!
There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip;
Nay, her foot speaks. Her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.
O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue,
That give accosting welcome ere it comes
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts
To every tickling reader! Set them down
For sluttish spoils of opportunity
And daughters of the game.

... Flourish.
The Trojan’s trumpet.

...enter the lists.
They are opposed already.

...looks so heavy?
The youngest son of Priam, a true knight,
Not yet mature, yet matchless firm of word,
Speaking in deeds, and deedless in his tongue,
Not soon provoked, nor being provoked soon calmed,
His heart and hand both open and both free.
For what he has, he gives; what thinks, he shows;
Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty,
Nor dignifies an impair thought with breath;
Manly as Hector, but more dangerous,
For Hector in his blaze of wrath subscribes
To tender objects, but he in heat of action
Is more vindicative than jealous love.
They call him Troilus, and on him erect
A second hope, as fairly built as Hector.
Thus says Aeneas, one that knows the youth
Even to his inches, and with private soul
Did in great Ilium thus translate him to me.

...see your knights.
Agamemnon and the rest come forward.

...seen the time!
I wonder now how yonder city stands
When we have here her base and pillar by us.

...your Greekish embassy.
Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue.
My prophecy is but half his journey yet,
For yonder walls, that pertly front your town,
Yon towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,
Must kiss their own feet.

...day end it.
So to him we leave it.
Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome.
After the General, I beseech you next
To feast with me and see me at my tent.

...doth Calchas keep?
At Menelaus’ tent, most princely Troilus.
There Diomed doth feast with him tonight,
Who neither looks upon the heaven nor Earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.

...bring me thither?
You shall command me, sir.
As gentle tell me, of what honor was
This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there
That wails her absence?

...for Fortune’s tooth.
They exit.

ACT 5
Scene 1

...were not Menelaus.
Enter Hector, Troilus, Ajax, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Menelaus, and Diomedes, with lights.

... Enter Achilles.
to Hector
Here comes himself to guide you.

...me your hand.
aside to Troilus
Follow his torch; he goes to Calchas’ tent.
I’ll keep you company.

...so, good night.
Diomedes exits, followed by Troilus and Ulysses.

Scene 2

...comes to you.
Enter Troilus and Ulysses, at a distance, and then, apart from them, Thersites.
aside to Troilus
Stand where the torch may not discover us.

...Yea, so familiar?
aside to Troilus
She will sing any man at
first sight.

...should she remember?
aside to Troilus
List!

...night. Hold, patience!
aside to Troilus
How now, Trojan?

...plague and madness!
aside to Troilus
You are moved, prince. Let us depart, I pray you,
Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself
To wrathful terms. This place is dangerous;
The time right deadly. I beseech you, go.

...I pray you.
aside to Troilus
Nay, good my lord, go off.
You flow to great distraction. Come, my lord.

...I prithee, stay.
aside to Troilus
You have not patience. Come.

...withered truth!
aside to Troilus
How now, my lord?

...hither once again.
aside to Troilus
You shake, my lord, at something. Will you go?
You will break out.

...strokes his cheek!
aside to Troilus
Come, come.

...fetch you one.
aside to Troilus
You have sworn patience.

...is thy faith?
aside to Troilus
My lord—

...now turned whore.”
All’s done, my lord.

... It is.
Why stay we then?

...Was Cressid here?
I cannot conjure, Trojan.

...was not, sure.
Most sure she was.

...taste of madness.
Nor mine, my lord. Cressid was here but now.

...this not Cressid.
What hath she done, prince, that can soil our mothers?

...given to Diomed.
May worthy Troilus be half attached
With that which here his passion doth express?

...they’ll seem glorious.
O, contain yourself.
Your passion draws ears hither.

...on thy head!
I’ll bring you to the gates.

...Accept distracted thanks.
Troilus, Aeneas, and Ulysses exit.

Scene 5

...is called impossibility.
Enter Ulysses.
O, courage, courage, princes! Great Achilles
Is 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
And 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
As if that luck, in very spite of cunning,
Bade him win all.

...none but Hector.
He exits, with the others.