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Home  »  The Oxford Shakespeare  »  Troilus and Cressida

William Shakespeare (1564–1616). The Oxford Shakespeare. 1914.

Act V. Scene V.

Troilus and Cressida

Another Part of the Plains.

Enter DIOMEDES and a Servant.

Dio.Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus’ horse;

Present the fair steed to my Lady Cressid:

Fellow, commend my service to her beauty:

Tell her I have chastis’d the amorous Trojan,

And am her knight by proof.

Serv.I go, my lord.[Exit.

Enter AGAMEMNON.

Agam.Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamas

Hath beat down Menon; 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;

Amphimachus, 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.

Nest.Go, bear Patroclus’ body to Achilles;

And bid the snail-pac’d Ajax 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 called impossibility.

Enter ULYSSES.

Ulyss.O! courage, courage, princes; great Achilles

Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance:

Patroclus’ wounds have rous’d his drowsy blood,

Together with his mangled Myrmidons,

That noseless, handless, hack’d and chipp’d, come to him,

Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend,

And foams at mouth, and he is arm’d and at it,

Roaring for Troilus, who hath done to-day

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.

Enter AJAX.

Ajax.Troilus! thou coward Troilus![Exit.

Dio.Ay, there, there.

Nest.So, so, we draw together.

Enter ACHILLES.

Achil.Where is this Hector?

Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face;

Know what it is to meet Achilles angry:

Hector! where’s Hector? I will none but Hector.[Exeunt.