Part 42

Troy. They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe, I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.

Enter Pandarus

Pan. Do you hear, my lord? Do you hear?

Troy. What now?

Pan. Here’s a letter come from yond poor girl.

Troy. Let me read.

Pan. A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick so troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl, and what one thing, what another, that I shall leave you one o’ th’s days; and I have a rheum in mine eyes too, and such an ache in my bones that unless a man were curs’d I cannot tell what to think on’t. What says she there?

Troy. Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart; Th’ effect doth operate another way. [Tearing the letter] Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together. My love with words and errors still she feeds, But edifies another with her deeds. Exeunt severally

Enter Thersites. Excursions

Ther. Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I’ll go look on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy doting foolish young knave’s sleeve of Troy there in his helm. I would fain see them meet, that that same young Troian ass that loves the whore there might send that Greekish whoremasterly villain with the sleeve back to the dissembling luxurious drab of a sleeve-less errand. A th’ t’other side, the policy of those crafty swearing rascals-that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Vlyſſes -is not prov’d worth a blackberry. They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur, Aiax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles; and now is the cur, Aiax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to-day; whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion.

Enter Diomedes, Troylus following

Soft! here comes sleeve, and t’other.

Troy. Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river Styx I would swim after.

Diom. Thou dost miscall retire. I do not fly; but advantageous care Withdrew me from the odds of multitude. Have at thee.

Ther. Hold thy whore, Grecian; now for thy whore, Troian-now the sleeve, now the sleeve! Exeunt Troylus and Diomedes fighting

Enter Hector

Hect. What art thou, Greek? Art thou for Hector’s match? Art thou of blood and honour?

Ther. No, no-I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave; a very filthy rogue.

Hect. I do believe thee. Live. Exit

Ther. God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague break thy neck for frighting me! What’s become of the wenching rogues? I think they have swallowed one another. I would laugh at that miracle. Yet, in a sort, lechery eats itself. I’ll seek them. Exit

Enter Diomedes and a Servant

Diom. Go, go, my servant, take thou Troylus’ horse; Present the fair steed to my lady Creſſid. Fellow, commend my service to her beauty; Tell her I have chastis’d the amorous Troian, And am her knight by proof.

Ser. I go, my lord. Exit

Enter Agamemnon

Agam. Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamus Hath beat down enon; bastard Margarelon Hath Doreus prisoner, And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam, Upon the pashed corses of the kings Epistrophus and Cedius. Polixenes is slain; Amphimacus and Thoas deadly hurt; Patroclus ta’en, or slain; and Palamedes Sore hurt and bruis’d. The dreadful Sagittary Appals our numbers. Haste we, Diomed, To reinforcement, or we perish all.

Enter Nestor

Nestor. Go, bear Patroclus’ body to Achilles, And bid the snail-pac’d Aiax arm for shame. 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, And there they fly or die, like scaled sculls Before the belching whale; then is he yonder, And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge, Fall down before him like the mower’s swath. Here, there, and everywhere, he leaves and takes; Dexterity so obeying appetite That what he will he does, and does so much That proof is call’d impossibility.

Enter Vlyſſes