SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent. Troilus and Cressida  Shakespeare homepage  |  Troiles and Cressida  | Act 3, Scene 3 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before Achilles' tent. 

 Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS  CALCHAS  Now, princes, for the service I have done you, 

 The advantage of the time prompts me aloud 

 To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind 

 That, through the sight I bear in things to love, 

 I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession, 

 Incurr'd a traitor's name; exposed myself, 

 From certain and possess'd conveniences, 

 To doubtful fortunes; sequestering from me all 

 That time, acquaintance, custom and condition 

 Made tame and most familiar to my nature, 

 And here, to do you service, am become 

 As new into the world, strange, unacquainted: 

 I do beseech you, as in way of taste, 

 To give me now a little benefit, 

 Out of those many register'd in promise, 

 Which, you say, live to come in my behalf. 

 AGAMEMNON  What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? make demand. 

 CALCHAS  You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor, 

 Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear. 

 Oft have you--often have you thanks therefore-- 

 Desired my Cressid in right great exchange, 

 Whom Troy hath still denied: but this Antenor, 

 I know, is such a wrest in their affairs 

 That their negotiations all must slack, 

 Wanting his manage; and they will almost 

 Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam, 

 In change of him: let him be sent, great princes, 

 And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence 

 Shall quite strike off all service I have done, 

 In most accepted pain. 

 AGAMEMNON  Let Diomedes bear him, 

 And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have 

 What he requests of us. Good Diomed, 

 Furnish you fairly for this interchange: 

 Withal bring word if Hector will to-morrow 

 Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready. 

 DIOMEDES  This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden 

 Which I am proud to bear. 



 Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS 

 Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their tent  ULYSSES  Achilles stands i' the entrance of his tent: 

 Please it our general to pass strangely by him, 

 As if he were forgot; and, princes all, 

 Lay negligent and loose regard upon him: 

 I will come last. 'Tis like he'll question me 

 Why such unplausive eyes are bent on him: 

 If so, I have derision medicinable, 

 To use between your strangeness and his pride, 

 Which his own will shall have desire to drink: 

 It may be good: pride hath no other glass 

 To show itself but pride, for supple knees 

 Feed arrogance and are the proud man's fees. 

 AGAMEMNON  We'll execute your purpose, and put on 

 A form of strangeness as we pass along: 

 So do each lord, and either greet him not, 

 Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more 

 Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way. 

 ACHILLES  What, comes the general to speak with me? 

 You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy. 

 AGAMEMNON  What says Achilles? would he aught with us? 

 NESTOR  Would you, my lord, aught with the general? 

 ACHILLES  No. 

 NESTOR  Nothing, my lord. 

 AGAMEMNON  The better. 



 Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTOR  ACHILLES  Good day, good day. 

 MENELAUS  How do you? how do you? 



 Exit  ACHILLES  What, does the cuckold scorn me? 

 AJAX  How now, Patroclus! 

 ACHILLES  Good morrow, Ajax. 

 AJAX  Ha? 

 ACHILLES  Good morrow. 

 AJAX  Ay, and good next day too. 



 Exit  ACHILLES  What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles? 

 PATROCLUS  They pass by strangely: they were used to bend 

 To send their smiles before them to Achilles; 

 To come as humbly as they used to creep 

 To holy altars. 

 ACHILLES  What, am I poor of late? 

 'Tis certain, greatness, once fall'n out with fortune, 

 Must fall out with men too: what the declined is 

 He shall as soon read in the eyes of others 

 As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies, 

 Show not their mealy wings but to the summer, 

 And not a man, for being simply man, 

 Hath any honour, but honour for those honours 

 That are without him, as place, riches, favour, 

 Prizes of accident as oft as merit: 

 Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, 

 The love that lean'd on them as slippery too, 

 Do one pluck down another and together 

 Die in the fall. But 'tis not so with me: 

 Fortune and I are friends: I do enjoy 

 At ample point all that I did possess, 

 Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out 

 Something not worth in me such rich beholding 

 As they have often given. Here is Ulysses; 

 I'll interrupt his reading. 

 How now Ulysses! 

 ULYSSES  Now, great Thetis' son! 

 ACHILLES  What are you reading? 

 ULYSSES  A strange fellow here 

 Writes me: 'That man, how dearly ever parted, 

 How much in having, or without or in, 

 Cannot make boast to have that which he hath, 

 Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection; 

 As when his virtues shining upon others 

 Heat them and they retort that heat again 

 To the first giver.' 

 ACHILLES  This is not strange, Ulysses. 

 The beauty that is borne here in the face 

 The bearer knows not, but commends itself 

 To others' eyes; nor doth the eye itself, 

 That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself, 

 Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed 

 Salutes each other with each other's form; 

 For speculation turns not to itself, 

 Till it hath travell'd and is mirror'd there 

 Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all. 

 ULYSSES  I do not strain at the position,-- 

 It is familiar,--but at the author's drift; 

 Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves 

 That no man is the lord of any thing, 

 Though in and of him there be much consisting, 

 Till he communicate his parts to others: 

 Nor doth he of himself know them for aught 

 Till he behold them form'd in the applause 

 Where they're extended; who, like an arch, 

 reverberates 

 The voice again, or, like a gate of steel 

 Fronting the sun, receives and renders back 

 His figure and his heat.  I was much wrapt in this; 

 And apprehended here immediately 

 The unknown Ajax. 

 Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse, 

 That has he knows not what. Nature, what things there are 

 Most abject in regard and dear in use! 

 What things again most dear in the esteem 

 And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow-- 

 An act that very chance doth throw upon him-- 

 Ajax renown'd. O heavens, what some men do, 

 While some men leave to do! 

 How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall, 

 Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes! 

 How one man eats into another's pride, 

 While pride is fasting in his wantonness! 

 To see these Grecian lords!--why, even already 

 They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder, 

 As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast 

 And great Troy shrieking. 

 ACHILLES  I do believe it; for they pass'd by me 

 As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me 

 Good word nor look: what, are my deeds forgot? 

 ULYSSES  Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, 

 Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, 

 A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: 

 Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd 

 As fast as they are made, forgot as soon 

 As done: perseverance, dear my lord, 

 Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang 

 Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail 

 In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; 

 For honour travels in a strait so narrow, 

 Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; 

 For emulation hath a thousand sons 

 That one by one pursue: if you give way, 

 Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, 

 Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by 

 And leave you hindmost; 

 Or like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, 

 Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, 

 O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present, 

 Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours; 

 For time is like a fashionable host 

 That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, 

 And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, 

 Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, 

 And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not 

 virtue seek 

 Remuneration for the thing it was; 

 For beauty, wit, 

 High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, 

 Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all 

 To envious and calumniating time. 

 One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, 

 That all with one consent praise new-born gawds, 

 Though they are made and moulded of things past, 

 And give to dust that is a little gilt 

 More laud than gilt o'er-dusted. 

 The present eye praises the present object. 

 Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, 

 That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax; 

 Since things in motion sooner catch the eye 

 Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee, 

 And still it might, and yet it may again, 

 If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive 

 And case thy reputation in thy tent; 

 Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late, 

 Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves 

 And drave great Mars to faction. 

 ACHILLES  Of this my privacy 

 I have strong reasons. 

 ULYSSES  But 'gainst your privacy 

 The reasons are more potent and heroical: 

 'Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love 

 With one of Priam's daughters. 

 ACHILLES  Ha! known! 

 ULYSSES  Is that a wonder? 

 The providence that's in a watchful state 

 Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold, 

 Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps, 

 Keeps place with thought and almost, like the gods, 

 Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles. 

 There is a mystery--with whom relation 

 Durst never meddle--in the soul of state; 

 Which hath an operation more divine 

 Than breath or pen can give expressure to: 

 All the commerce that you have had with Troy 

 As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord; 

 And better would it fit Achilles much 

 To throw down Hector than Polyxena: 

 But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home, 

 When fame shall in our islands sound her trump, 

 And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing, 

 'Great Hector's sister did Achilles win, 

 But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.' 

 Farewell, my lord: I as your lover speak; 

 The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break. 



 Exit  PATROCLUS  To this effect, Achilles, have I moved you: 

 A woman impudent and mannish grown 

 Is not more loathed than an effeminate man 

 In time of action. I stand condemn'd for this; 

 They think my little stomach to the war 

 And your great love to me restrains you thus: 

 Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid 

 Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold, 

 And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane, 

 Be shook to air. 

 ACHILLES  Shall Ajax fight with Hector? 

 PATROCLUS  Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him. 

 ACHILLES  I see my reputation is at stake 

 My fame is shrewdly gored. 

 PATROCLUS  O, then, beware; 

 Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves: 

 Omission to do what is necessary 

 Seals a commission to a blank of danger; 

 And danger, like an ague, subtly taints 

 Even then when we sit idly in the sun. 

 ACHILLES  Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus: 

 I'll send the fool to Ajax and desire him 

 To invite the Trojan lords after the combat 

 To see us here unarm'd: I have a woman's longing, 

 An appetite that I am sick withal, 

 To see great Hector in his weeds of peace, 

 To talk with him and to behold his visage, 

 Even to my full of view. 



 Enter THERSITES  A labour saved! 

 THERSITES  A wonder! 

 ACHILLES  What? 

 THERSITES  Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself. 

 ACHILLES  How so? 

 THERSITES  He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector, and is so 

 prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling that he 

 raves in saying nothing. 

 ACHILLES  How can that be? 

 THERSITES  Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock,--a stride 

 and a stand: ruminates like an hostess that hath no 

 arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: 

 bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should 

 say 'There were wit in this head, an 'twould out;' 

 and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire 

 in a flint, which will not show without knocking. 

 The man's undone forever; for if Hector break not his 

 neck i' the combat, he'll break 't himself in 

 vain-glory. He knows not me: I said 'Good morrow, 

 Ajax;' and he replies 'Thanks, Agamemnon.' What think 

 you of this man that takes me for the general? He's 

 grown a very land-fish, language-less, a monster. 

 A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both 

 sides, like a leather jerkin. 

 ACHILLES  Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites. 

 THERSITES  Who, I? why, he'll answer nobody; he professes not 

 answering: speaking is for beggars; he wears his 

 tongue in's arms. I will put on his presence: let 

 Patroclus make demands to me, you shall see the 

 pageant of Ajax. 

 ACHILLES  To him, Patroclus; tell him I humbly desire the 

 valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector 

 to come unarmed to my tent, and to procure 

 safe-conduct for his person of the magnanimous 

 and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honoured 

 captain-general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon, 

 et cetera. Do this. 

 PATROCLUS  Jove bless great Ajax! 

 THERSITES  Hum! 

 PATROCLUS  I come from the worthy Achilles,-- 

 THERSITES  Ha! 

 PATROCLUS  Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent,-- 

 THERSITES  Hum! 

 PATROCLUS  And to procure safe-conduct from Agamemnon. 

 THERSITES  Agamemnon! 

 PATROCLUS  Ay, my lord. 

 THERSITES  Ha! 

 PATROCLUS  What say you to't? 

 THERSITES  God b' wi' you, with all my heart. 

 PATROCLUS  Your answer, sir. 

 THERSITES  If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven o'clock it will 

 go one way or other: howsoever, he shall pay for me 

 ere he has me. 

 PATROCLUS  Your answer, sir. 

 THERSITES  Fare you well, with all my heart. 

 ACHILLES  Why, but he is not in this tune, is he? 

 THERSITES  No, but he's out o' tune thus. What music will be in 

 him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know 

 not; but, I am sure, none, unless the fiddler Apollo 

 get his sinews to make catlings on. 

 ACHILLES  Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight. 

 THERSITES  Let me bear another to his horse; for that's the more 

 capable creature. 

 ACHILLES  My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr'd; 

 And I myself see not the bottom of it. 



 Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS  THERSITES  Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, 

 that I might water an ass at it! I had rather be a 

 tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance. 



 Exit  Shakespeare homepage  |  Troiles and Cressida  | Act 3, Scene 3 

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