| ACT V SCENE I | The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent. | |
| [Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS] |
| ACHILLES | I'll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night, |
| Which with my scimitar I'll cool to-morrow. |
| Patroclus, let us feast him to the height. |
| PATROCLUS | Here comes Thersites. |
| [Enter THERSITES] |
| ACHILLES | How now, thou core of envy! | 5 |
| Thou crusty batch of nature, what's the news? |
| THERSITES | Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol |
| of idiot worshippers, here's a letter for thee. |
| ACHILLES | From whence, fragment? |
| THERSITES | Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy. | 10 |
| PATROCLUS | Who keeps the tent now? |
| THERSITES | The surgeon's box, or the patient's wound. |
| PATROCLUS | Well said, adversity! and what need these tricks? |
| THERSITES | Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk: |
| thou art thought to be Achilles' male varlet. | 15 |
| PATROCLUS | Male varlet, you rogue! what's that? |
| THERSITES | Why, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases |
| of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, |
| loads o' gravel i' the back, lethargies, cold |
| palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing | 20 |
| lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, |
| limekilns i' the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the |
| rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take |
| again such preposterous discoveries! |
| PATROCLUS | Why thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest | 25 |
| thou to curse thus? |
| THERSITES | Do I curse thee? |
| PATROCLUS | Why no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson |
| indistinguishable cur, no. |
| THERSITES | No! why art thou then exasperate, thou idle | 30 |
| immaterial skein of sleave-silk, thou green sarcenet |
| flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal's |
| purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered |
| with such waterflies, diminutives of nature! |
| PATROCLUS | Out, gall! | 35 |
| THERSITES | Finch-egg! |
| ACHILLES | My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite |
| From my great purpose in to-morrow's battle. |
| Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba, |
| A token from her daughter, my fair love, | 40 |
| Both taxing me and gaging me to keep |
| An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it: |
| Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay; |
| My major vow lies here, this I'll obey. |
| Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent: | 45 |
| This night in banqueting must all be spent. |
| Away, Patroclus! |
| [Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS] |
| THERSITES | With too much blood and too little brain, these two |
| may run mad; but, if with too much brain and too |
| little blood they do, I'll be a curer of madmen. | 50 |
| Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough and one |
| that loves quails; but he has not so much brain as |
| earwax: and the goodly transformation of Jupiter |
| there, his brother, the bull,--the primitive statue, |
| and oblique memorial of cuckolds; a thrifty | 55 |
| shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother's |
| leg,--to what form but that he is, should wit larded |
| with malice and malice forced with wit turn him to? |
| To an ass, were nothing; he is both ass and ox: to |
| an ox, were nothing; he is both ox and ass. To be a | 60 |
| dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an |
| owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would |
| not care; but to be Menelaus, I would conspire |
| against destiny. Ask me not, what I would be, if I |
| were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse | 65 |
| of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus! Hey-day! |
| spirits and fires! |
| [
Enter HECTOR, TROILUS, AJAX, AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES,
NESTOR, MENELAUS, and DIOMEDES, with lights
] |
| AGAMEMNON | We go wrong, we go wrong. |
| AJAX | No, yonder 'tis; |
| There, where we see the lights. | 70 |
| HECTOR | I trouble you. |
| AJAX | No, not a whit. |
| ULYSSES | Here comes himself to guide you. |
| [Re-enter ACHILLES] |
| ACHILLES | Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, princes all. |
| AGAMEMNON | So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good night. | 75 |
| Ajax commands the guard to tend on you. |
| HECTOR | Thanks and good night to the Greeks' general. |
| MENELAUS | Good night, my lord. |
| HECTOR | Good night, sweet lord Menelaus. |
| THERSITES | Sweet draught: 'sweet' quoth 'a! sweet sink, | 80 |
| sweet sewer. |
| ACHILLES | Good night and welcome, both at once, to those |
| That go or tarry. |
| AGAMEMNON | Good night. |
| [Exeunt AGAMEMNON and MENELAUS] |
| ACHILLES | Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed, | 85 |
| Keep Hector company an hour or two. |
| DIOMEDES | I cannot, lord; I have important business, |
| The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector. |
| HECTOR | Give me your hand. |
| ULYSSES | [Aside to TROILUS] Follow his torch; he goes to
| 90 |
| Calchas' tent: |
| I'll keep you company. |
| TROILUS | Sweet sir, you honour me. |
| HECTOR | And so, good night. |
| [Exit DIOMEDES; ULYSSES and TROILUS following] |
| ACHILLES | Come, come, enter my tent. | 95 |
| [Exeunt ACHILLES, HECTOR, AJAX, and NESTOR] |
| THERSITES | That same Diomed's a false-hearted rogue, a most |
| unjust knave; I will no more trust him when he leers |
| than I will a serpent when he hisses: he will spend |
| his mouth, and promise, like Brabbler the hound: |
| but when he performs, astronomers foretell it; it | 100 |
| is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun |
| borrows of the moon, when Diomed keeps his |
| word. I will rather leave to see Hector, than |
| not to dog him: they say he keeps a Trojan |
| drab, and uses the traitor Calchas' tent: I'll | 105 |
| after. Nothing but lechery! all incontinent varlets! |
| [Exit] |
Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida: Scenes and Commentary