SCENE I. The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent. Troilus and Cressida  Shakespeare homepage  |  Troiles and Cressida  | Act 5, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  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! 

 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. 

 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. 

 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 

 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 

 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 

 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! 

 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, 

 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: 

 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. 

 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 

 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 

 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 

 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. 

 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. 

 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, 

 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, 

 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 

 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. 



 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 

 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 

 after. Nothing but lechery! all incontinent varlets! 



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