Shakespearefor Bharat
Troilus and Cressida

Act II · Scene II

Troy. A room in Priam's palace.

Hover a speech to translate it — or press play to hear it performed.

Enter PRIAM, HECTOR, TROILUS, PARIS, and HELENUS

PRIAM
After so many hours, lives, speeches spent,Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:'Deliver Helen, and all damage else--As honour, loss of time, travail, expense,Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumedIn hot digestion of this cormorant war--Shall be struck off.' Hector, what say you to't?
HECTOR
Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than IAs far as toucheth my particular,Yet, dread Priam,There is no lady of more softer bowels,More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,More ready to cry out 'Who knows what follows?'Than Hector is: the wound of peace is surety,Surety secure; but modest doubt is call'dThe beacon of the wise, the tent that searchesTo the bottom of the worst. Let Helen go:Since the first sword was drawn about this question,Every tithe soul, 'mongst many thousand dismes,Hath been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours:If we have lost so many tenths of ours,To guard a thing not ours nor worth to us,Had it our name, the value of one ten,What merit's in that reason which deniesThe yielding of her up?
TROILUS
Fie, fie, my brother!Weigh you the worth and honour of a kingSo great as our dread father in a scaleOf common ounces? will you with counters sumThe past proportion of his infinite?And buckle in a waist most fathomlessWith spans and inches so diminutiveAs fears and reasons? fie, for godly shame!
HELENUS
No marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons,You are so empty of them. Should not our fatherBear the great sway of his affairs with reasons,Because your speech hath none that tells him so?
TROILUS
You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest;You fur your gloves with reason. Here areyour reasons:You know an enemy intends you harm;You know a sword employ'd is perilous,And reason flies the object of all harm:Who marvels then, when Helenus beholdsA Grecian and his sword, if he do setThe very wings of reason to his heelsAnd fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,Or like a star disorb'd? Nay, if we talk of reason,Let's shut our gates and sleep: manhood and honourShould have hare-hearts, would they but fattheir thoughtsWith this cramm'd reason: reason and respectMake livers pale and lustihood deject.
HECTOR
Brother, she is not worth what she doth costThe holding.
TROILUS
What is aught, but as 'tis valued?
HECTOR
But value dwells not in particular will;It holds his estimate and dignityAs well wherein 'tis precious of itselfAs in the prizer: 'tis mad idolatryTo make the service greater than the godAnd the will dotes that is attributiveTo what infectiously itself affects,Without some image of the affected merit.
TROILUS
I take to-day a wife, and my electionIs led on in the conduct of my will;My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shoresOf will and judgment: how may I avoid,Although my will distaste what it elected,The wife I chose? there can be no evasionTo blench from this and to stand firm by honour:We turn not back the silks upon the merchant,When we have soil'd them, nor the remainder viandsWe do not throw in unrespective sieve,Because we now are full. It was thought meetParis should do some vengeance on the Greeks:Your breath of full consent bellied his sails;The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truceAnd did him service: he touch'd the ports desired,And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive,He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshnessWrinkles Apollo's, and makes stale the morning.Why keep we her? the Grecians keep our aunt:Is she worth keeping? why, she is a pearl,Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships,And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants.If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went--As you must needs, for you all cried 'Go, go,'--If you'll confess he brought home noble prize--As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your handsAnd cried 'Inestimable!'--why do you nowThe issue of your proper wisdoms rate,And do a deed that fortune never did,Beggar the estimation which you prizedRicher than sea and land? O, theft most base,That we have stol'n what we do fear to keep!But, thieves, unworthy of a thing so stol'n,That in their country did them that disgrace,We fear to warrant in our native place!
CASSANDRA
[Within] Cry, Trojans, cry!
PRIAM
What noise? what shriek is this?
TROILUS
'Tis our mad sister, I do know her voice.
CASSANDRA
[Within] Cry, Trojans!
HECTOR
It is Cassandra.

Enter CASSANDRA, raving

CASSANDRA
Cry, Trojans, cry! lend me ten thousand eyes,And I will fill them with prophetic tears.
HECTOR
Peace, sister, peace!
CASSANDRA
Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld,Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,Add to my clamours! let us pay betimesA moiety of that mass of moan to come.Cry, Trojans, cry! practise your eyes with tears!Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.Cry, Trojans, cry! a Helen and a woe:Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go.

Exit

HECTOR
Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strainsOf divination in our sister workSome touches of remorse? or is your bloodSo madly hot that no discourse of reason,Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,Can qualify the same?
TROILUS
Why, brother Hector,We may not think the justness of each actSuch and no other than event doth form it,Nor once deject the courage of our minds,Because Cassandra's mad: her brain-sick rapturesCannot distaste the goodness of a quarrelWhich hath our several honours all engagedTo make it gracious. For my private part,I am no more touch'd than all Priam's sons:And Jove forbid there should be done amongst usSuch things as might offend the weakest spleenTo fight for and maintain!
PARIS
Else might the world convince of levityAs well my undertakings as your counsels:But I attest the gods, your full consentGave wings to my propension and cut offAll fears attending on so dire a project.For what, alas, can these my single arms?What Propugnation is in one man's valour,To stand the push and enmity of thoseThis quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest,Were I alone to pass the difficultiesAnd had as ample power as I have will,Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done,Nor faint in the pursuit.
PRIAM
Paris, you speakLike one besotted on your sweet delights:You have the honey still, but these the gall;So to be valiant is no praise at all.
PARIS
Sir, I propose not merely to myselfThe pleasures such a beauty brings with it;But I would have the soil of her fair rapeWiped off, in honourable keeping her.What treason were it to the ransack'd queen,Disgrace to your great worths and shame to me,Now to deliver her possession upOn terms of base compulsion! Can it beThat so degenerate a strain as thisShould once set footing in your generous bosoms?There's not the meanest spirit on our partyWithout a heart to dare or sword to drawWhen Helen is defended, nor none so nobleWhose life were ill bestow'd or death unfamedWhere Helen is the subject; then, I say,Well may we fight for her whom, we know well,The world's large spaces cannot parallel.
HECTOR
Paris and Troilus, you have both said well,And on the cause and question now in handHave glozed, but superficially: not muchUnlike young men, whom Aristotle thoughtUnfit to hear moral philosophy:The reasons you allege do more conduceTo the hot passion of distemper'd bloodThan to make up a free determination'Twixt right and wrong, for pleasure and revengeHave ears more deaf than adders to the voiceOf any true decision. Nature cravesAll dues be render'd to their owners: now,What nearer debt in all humanityThan wife is to the husband? If this lawOf nature be corrupted through affection,And that great minds, of partial indulgenceTo their benumbed wills, resist the same,There is a law in each well-order'd nationTo curb those raging appetites that areMost disobedient and refractory.If Helen then be wife to Sparta's king,As it is known she is, these moral lawsOf nature and of nations speak aloudTo have her back return'd: thus to persistIn doing wrong extenuates not wrong,But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinionIs this in way of truth; yet ne'ertheless,My spritely brethren, I propend to youIn resolution to keep Helen still,For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependanceUpon our joint and several dignities.
TROILUS
Why, there you touch'd the life of our design:Were it not glory that we more affectedThan the performance of our heaving spleens,I would not wish a drop of Trojan bloodSpent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,She is a theme of honour and renown,A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,Whose present courage may beat down our foes,And fame in time to come canonize us;For, I presume, brave Hector would not loseSo rich advantage of a promised gloryAs smiles upon the forehead of this actionFor the wide world's revenue.
HECTOR
I am yours,You valiant offspring of great Priamus.I have a roisting challenge sent amongstThe dun and factious nobles of the GreeksWill strike amazement to their drowsy spirits:I was advertised their great general slept,Whilst emulation in the army crept:This, I presume, will wake him.

Exeunt