SCENE II. Troy. A room in Priam's palace. Troilus and Cressida  Shakespeare homepage  |  Troiles and Cressida  | Act 2, Scene 2 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE II. Troy. A room in Priam's palace. 

 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 consumed 

 In 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 I 

 As 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'd 

 The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches 

 To 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 denies 

 The yielding of her up? 

 TROILUS  Fie, fie, my brother! 

 Weigh you the worth and honour of a king 

 So great as our dread father in a scale 

 Of common ounces? will you with counters sum 

 The past proportion of his infinite? 

 And buckle in a waist most fathomless 

 With spans and inches so diminutive 

 As 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 father 

 Bear 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 are 

 your 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 beholds 

 A Grecian and his sword, if he do set 

 The very wings of reason to his heels 

 And 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 honour 

 Should have hare-hearts, would they but fat 

 their thoughts 

 With this cramm'd reason: reason and respect 

 Make livers pale and lustihood deject. 

 HECTOR  Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost 

 The holding. 

 TROILUS  What is aught, but as 'tis valued? 

 HECTOR  But value dwells not in particular will; 

 It holds his estimate and dignity 

 As well wherein 'tis precious of itself 

 As in the prizer: 'tis mad idolatry 

 To make the service greater than the god 

 And the will dotes that is attributive 

 To what infectiously itself affects, 

 Without some image of the affected merit. 

 TROILUS  I take to-day a wife, and my election 

 Is led on in the conduct of my will; 

 My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears, 

 Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores 

 Of will and judgment: how may I avoid, 

 Although my will distaste what it elected, 

 The wife I chose? there can be no evasion 

 To 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 viands 

 We do not throw in unrespective sieve, 

 Because we now are full. It was thought meet 

 Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks: 

 Your breath of full consent bellied his sails; 

 The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce 

 And 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 freshness 

 Wrinkles 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 hands 

 And cried 'Inestimable!'--why do you now 

 The issue of your proper wisdoms rate, 

 And do a deed that fortune never did, 

 Beggar the estimation which you prized 

 Richer 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 betimes 

 A 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 strains 

 Of divination in our sister work 

 Some touches of remorse? or is your blood 

 So 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 act 

 Such and no other than event doth form it, 

 Nor once deject the courage of our minds, 

 Because Cassandra's mad: her brain-sick raptures 

 Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel 

 Which hath our several honours all engaged 

 To 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 us 

 Such things as might offend the weakest spleen 

 To fight for and maintain! 

 PARIS  Else might the world convince of levity 

 As well my undertakings as your counsels: 

 But I attest the gods, your full consent 

 Gave wings to my propension and cut off 

 All 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 those 

 This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest, 

 Were I alone to pass the difficulties 

 And 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 speak 

 Like 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 myself 

 The pleasures such a beauty brings with it; 

 But I would have the soil of her fair rape 

 Wiped 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 up 

 On terms of base compulsion! Can it be 

 That so degenerate a strain as this 

 Should once set footing in your generous bosoms? 

 There's not the meanest spirit on our party 

 Without a heart to dare or sword to draw 

 When Helen is defended, nor none so noble 

 Whose life were ill bestow'd or death unfamed 

 Where 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 hand 

 Have glozed, but superficially: not much 

 Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought 

 Unfit to hear moral philosophy: 

 The reasons you allege do more conduce 

 To the hot passion of distemper'd blood 

 Than to make up a free determination 

 'Twixt right and wrong, for pleasure and revenge 

 Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice 

 Of any true decision. Nature craves 

 All dues be render'd to their owners: now, 

 What nearer debt in all humanity 

 Than wife is to the husband? If this law 

 Of nature be corrupted through affection, 

 And that great minds, of partial indulgence 

 To their benumbed wills, resist the same, 

 There is a law in each well-order'd nation 

 To curb those raging appetites that are 

 Most disobedient and refractory. 

 If Helen then be wife to Sparta's king, 

 As it is known she is, these moral laws 

 Of nature and of nations speak aloud 

 To have her back return'd: thus to persist 

 In doing wrong extenuates not wrong, 

 But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion 

 Is this in way of truth; yet ne'ertheless, 

 My spritely brethren, I propend to you 

 In resolution to keep Helen still, 

 For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependance 

 Upon our joint and several dignities. 

 TROILUS  Why, there you touch'd the life of our design: 

 Were it not glory that we more affected 

 Than the performance of our heaving spleens, 

 I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood 

 Spent 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 lose 

 So rich advantage of a promised glory 

 As smiles upon the forehead of this action 

 For the wide world's revenue. 

 HECTOR  I am yours, 

 You valiant offspring of great Priamus. 

 I have a roisting challenge sent amongst 

 The dun and factious nobles of the Greeks 

 Will 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. 



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