Troilus

“ ULYSSES. At Menelaus' tent, most princely Troilus.
There Diomed doth feast with him to-night,
Who neither looks upon the heaven nor earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.
TROILUS. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much,
After we part from Agamemnon's tent,
To bring me thither?
ULYSSES. You shall command me, sir.
As gentle tell me of what honour was
This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there
That wails her absence?
TROILUS. O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars
A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord? ”

“ I could live and die in the eyes of Troilus. Ne'er look, ne'er look; the eagles are gone. Crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece. CRESSIDA. There is amongst the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus. PANDARUS. Achilles? A drayman, a porter, a very camel! CRESSIDA. Well, well. PANDARUS. Well, well! Why, have you any discretion? Have you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man? ”

“ Falling on Diomed.
THERSITES. He'll tickle it for his concupy.
TROILUS. O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false!
Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,
And they'll seem glorious.
ULYSSES. O, contain yourself;
Your passion draws ears hither.
Enter AENEAS
AENEAS. I have been seeking you this hour, my lord.
Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy;
Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.
TROILUS. Have with you, Prince. My courteous lord, adieu.
Fairwell, revolted fair!-and, Diomed,
Stand fast and wear a castle on thy head. ”

“ PARIS. He eats nothing but doves, love; and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love. PANDARUS. Is this the generation of love: hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who's a-field today? PARIS. Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy. I would fain have arm'd to-day, but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not? HELEN. He hangs the lip at something. You know all, Lord Pandarus. ”

“ They that have the voice of lions and the act of hares, are they not monsters?
TROILUS.
Are there such? Such are not we. Praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go bare till merit crown it. No perfection in reversion shall have a praise in present. We will not name desert before his birth; and, being born, his addition shall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst shall be a mock for his truth; and what truth can speak truest not truer than Troilus.
CRESSIDA.
Will you walk in, my lord? ”

“ Make Cressid’s name the very crown of falsehood,
If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,
Do to this body what extremes you can,
But the strong base and building of my love
Is as the very centre of the earth,
Drawing all things to it. I’ll go in and weep—
PANDARUS.
Do, do.
CRESSIDA.
Tear my bright hair, and scratch my praised cheeks,
Crack my clear voice with sobs and break my heart,
With sounding ‘Troilus.’ I will not go from Troy.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE III. Troy. A street before Pandarus’ house. Enter Paris, Troilus, Aeneas, Deiphobus, Antenor and Diomedes. ”

“ PANDARUS. Swords! anything, he cares not; an the devil come to him,
it's all one. By God's lid, it does one's heart good. Yonder
comes Paris, yonder comes Paris.
PARIS passes
Look ye yonder, niece; is't not a gallant man too, is't not? Why, this is brave now. Who said he came hurt home to-day? He's not hurt. Why, this will do Helen's heart good now, ha! Would I could see Troilus now! You shall see Troilus anon. ”

“ Troilus takes care not to swoon; and Cressida at last, being alone with him, speaks wittily and with prudent delicacy; there is here an exceeding charm, no coarseness. Their happiness covers all, even voluptuousness, with a profusion and perfume of its heavenly roses. At most a slight spice of archness flavors it: "and gode thrift he had full oft." Troilus holds his mistress in his arms: "with worse hap God let us never mete." The poet is almost as well pleased as they: for him, as for the men of his time, the sovereign good is love, not damped, but satisfied ”

“ Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;
Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.
Cry, Troyans, 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 ”

“ And with another knot, five-finger-tied, The fractions of her faith, orts of her love, The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy relics Of her o'er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed. ULYSSES. May worthy Troilus be half-attach'd With that which here his passion doth express? TROILUS. Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well In characters as red as Mars his heart Inflam'd with Venus. Never did young man fancy With so eternal and so fix'd a soul. Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love, So much by weight hate I her Diomed. That sleeve is mine that he'll bear on his helm ”

“ Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece Than Cressid borne from Troy. PARIS. There is no help; The bitter disposition of the time Will have it so. On, lord; we'll follow you. AENEAS. Good morrow, all. Exit with servant PARIS. And tell me, noble Diomed-faith, tell me true, Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship- Who in your thoughts deserves fair Helen best, Myself or Menelaus? DIOMEDES. Both alike: He merits well to have her that doth seek her, Not making any scruple of her soilure, With such a hell of pain and world of charge ”

“ This ardent love breaks out in impassioned accents, in bursts of happiness. Far from being regarded as a fault, it is the source of all virtue. Troilus becomes braver, more generous, more upright, through it; his speech runs now on love and virtue; he scorns all villany; he honors those who possess merit, succors those who are in distress; and Cressida, delighted, repeats all day, with exceeding liveliness, this song, which is like the warbling of a nightingale:
"Whom should I thanken but you, god of love,
Of all this blisse, in which to bathe I ginne? ”

“ A Grecian’s life hath sunk; for every scruple
Of her contaminated carrion weight
A Trojan hath been slain. Since she could speak,
She hath not given so many good words breath
As for her Greeks and Trojans suff’red death.
PARIS.
Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do,
Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy;
But we in silence hold this virtue well,
We’ll not commend what we intend to sell.
Here lies our way.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. Troy. The court of Pandarus’ house. Enter Troilus and Cressida.
TROILUS.
Dear, trouble not yourself; the morn is cold. ”

“ Troilus loved and ceased to be a man.'
'Troilus loved and he was fooled,' said the more manly chaplain. 'A man may love and yet not be a Troilus. All women are not Cressids.'
'No; all women are not Cressids. The falsehood is not always on the woman's side. ”

“ From one bedside to another, "does he well to stoop so low?"
Yet had Troilus only known it, they were not the poor alone
Whom his brother served that morning, but their Master and his own.
There was one but just recovered, light of heart, though poor and weak,
With a journey long before him, going forth his home to seek,
Far away among the mountains where his wife and children stayed;
But the Patriarch's love had found him ere the stranger sought his aid,
Giving money for the journey, giving blessèd words of cheer. ”

“ If the years were long and many since he left his Father's door."
"But," said Troilus, "I am agèd, and my manhood's strength is past;
After such a life ungodly, can I hope for grace at last?"
"Never fear," the Patriarch answered, "there is joy in heaven to-day,
And they ask not in their gladness if your hair be black or gray."
So then Troilus gathered courage, and that night, by deed and word,
Gave himself and all his substance to the service of the Lord ”

“ His Troilus is a noble, sensitive, generous, pure- souled, manly, magnanimous hero, who is only confirmed and stimulated in all virtue by his love, who lives for his lady, and dies for her falsehood, in a lofty and chivalrous fashion. ”

“ Among many other possible sources may be mentioned a now lost play of Troilus and Cressida (produced in 1599) by the poets Thomas Dekker and Henry Chettle.
The Fable. The scene is Troy. Cressida is a Trojan woman, whose father, Calchas, has gone over to the Greeks. She is beloved by the youth Troilus. Her uncle, Pandarus, seeks to bring her to accept Troilus. Hector, brother to Troilus, challenges a Greek champion to single combat.
In the Greek camp there is much disaffection. Achilles, the chief Greek champion, conceiving himself wronged, makes a mock of the other leaders. ”

“ As great a craft is to keep weal as win; <65>
Bridle alway thy speech and thy desire,
For worldly joy holds not but by a wire;
That proveth well, it breaks all day so oft,
Forthy need is to worke with it soft.”
Troilus sedulously observes the counsel; and the lovers have many renewals of their pleasure, and of their bitter chidings of the Day. The effects of love on Troilus are altogether refining and ennobling; as may be inferred from the song which he sung often to Pandarus:
The Second Song of Troilus.
“Love, that of Earth and Sea hath governance! ”

“ As [pg 088] the witnesses were accusing, Troilus, the prefect, said to him: What a man art thou to have seen and heard the attempts of Olympius against the emperor, yet not to have forbidden him, but to have consented with him. To whom the Pope instantly replied: Lord Troilus, tell us when George, as you know and we have heard, who had been a monk, and was become a magistrate, entered into this city from the camp, and said and did such and such things, where were you and those with you to offer no resistance, though he harangued you and banished from the palace such as he chose? ”

“ Troilus gives utterance to a hint of fear; but he is silenced by Pandarus with another proverb — “Thou hast full great care, lest that the carl should fall out of the moon.” Then the lovesick youth breaks into a joyous boast that some of the Greeks shall smart; he mounts his horse, and plays the lion in the field; while Pandarus retires to consider how he may best recommend to his niece the suit of Troilus. ”

“ CRESSIDA Adieu, uncle!
[Below, the last of the soldiers and populace have passed off, right, where Cressida gazes after them, speaking aloud to herself:]
O more in Troilus thousandfold I see Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be; Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing. Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.
[Below, from the right, Troilus hastens back, alone. The arrow with the flower he has thrust through the [Pg 58] links in his chain armor on his left side. Pointing to it, he calls up toward the battlement.] ”

“ The lover condemns the whole discourse of his friend as unworthy, and calls on Death, the ender of all sorrows, to come to him and quench his heart with his cold stroke. Then he distils anew in tears, “as liquor out of alembic;” and Pandarus is silent for a while, till he bethinks him to recommend to Troilus the carrying off of Cressida. “Art thou in Troy, and hast no hardiment [daring, boldness] to take a woman which that loveth thee?” But Troilus reminds his counsellor that all the war had come from the ravishing of a woman by might (the abduction of Helen by Paris) ”

“ Incipit Liber Primus The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen, 1 That was the king Priamus sone of Troye, In lovinge, how his aventures fellen Fro wo to wele, and after out of Ioye, My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye. 5 Thesiphone, thou help me for tendyte Thise woful vers, that wepen as I wryte! ”

“ As they sit side by side, on a stone of jasper, on a cushion of beaten gold, Troilus rides by, in all his goodliness. Cressida waxes “as red as rose,” as she sees him salute humbly, “with dreadful cheer, and oft his hues mue [change] ;” she likes “all y-fere, his person, his array, his look, his cheer, his goodly manner, and his gentleness;” so that, however she may have been before, “to goode hope now hath she caught a thorn, she shall not pull it out this nexte week.” Pandarus, striking the iron when it is hot, asks his niece to grant Troilus an interview ”

“ Further, further. But Troy is the birthplace of my homesickness. Troy is more than a patriotism, for it is built of my very flesh; the remembrance of it is a fire that sticks and tears when I would pull it off.
But further. One last look at Troilus where he stands by the western gate, staring over the plain. Further. When I have learnt the truth, I will return and build a new palace with domes less ominously like breasts, and there I will invent a safer Helen and a less paradoxical Cressid, and my harem will be a library for enlightenment.
VI
HERE are pagodas of diminishing bells. ”