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HECTOR.

Fie, savage, fie!

TROILUS.

Hector, then 'tis wars.

HECTOR.

Troilus, I would not have you fight to-day.

TROILUS.

Who should withhold me?

Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars

Beck'ning with fiery truncheon my retire;

Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,

Their eyes o'ergalled with recourse of tears;

Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,

Oppos'd to hinder me, should stop my way,

But by my ruin.

Re-enter CASSANDRA, with PRIAM

CASSANDRA.

Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast;

He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay,

Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,

Fall all together.

PRIAM.

Come, Hector, come, go back.

Thy wife hath dreamt; thy mother hath had visions;

Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself

Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt

To tell thee that this day is ominous.

Therefore, come back.

HECTOR.

Aeneas is a-field;

And I do stand engag'd to many Greeks,

Even in the faith of valour, to appear

This morning to them.

PRIAM.

Ay, but thou shalt not go.

HECTOR.

I must not break my faith.

You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir,

Let me not shame respect; but give me leave

To take that course by your consent and voice

Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.

CASSANDRA.

O Priam, yield not to him!

ANDROMACHE.

Do not, dear father.

HECTOR.

Andromache, I am offended with you.

Upon the love you bear me, get you in.

Exit

ANDROMACHE

TROILUS.

This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl

Makes all these bodements.

CASSANDRA.

O, farewell, dear Hector!

Look how thou diest. Look how thy eye turns pale.

Look how thy wounds do bleed at many vents.

Hark how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out;

How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth;

Behold distraction, frenzy, and amazement,

Like witless antics, one another meet,

And all cry, Hector! Hector's dead! O Hector!

TROILUS.

Away, away!

CASSANDRA.

Farewell!-yet, soft! Hector, I take my leave.

Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.

Exit

HECTOR. You are amaz'd, my liege, at her exclaim.

Go in, and cheer the town; we'll forth, and fight,

Do deeds worth praise and tell you them at night.

PRIAM.

Farewell. The gods with safety stand about thee!

Exeunt severally PRIAM and HECTOR.

Alarums

TROILUS.

They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe,

I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.

Enter PANDARUS

PANDARUS.

Do you hear, my lord? Do you hear?

TROILUS.

What now?

PANDARUS.

Here's a letter come from yond poor girl.

TROILUS.

Let me read.

PANDARUS.

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?

TROILUS.

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

ACT V. SCENE 4. The plain between Troy and the Grecian camp

Enter THERSITES. Excursions

THERSITES.

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 Troyan 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, Ulysses -is not prov'd worth a

blackberry. They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur,

Ajax,

against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles; and now is the cur,

Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm to-day;

whereupon