SCENE V.
The Same.
Enter Diomedes and a Servant.
Dio.
Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus' horse2 note
;
Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid:
Follow, commend my service to her beauty;
Tell her, I have chastis'd the amorous Trojan,
And am her knight by proof.
Serv.
I go, my lord.
[Exit Servant.
Enter Agamemnon.
Agam.
Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamus
Hath beat down Menon3 note: bastard Margarelon4 note
-- 431 --
Hath Doreus prisoner;
And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam5 note
,
Upon the pashed6 note
corses of the kings
Epistrophus and Cedius: Polixenes is slain;
Amphimachus, and Thoas, deadly hurt;
Patroclus ta'en, or slain; and Palamedes
Sore hurt and bruis'd: the dreadful Sagittary
Appals our numbers7 note
; haste we, Diomed,
To reinforcement, or we perish all.
-- 432 --
Enter Nestor.
Nest.
Go, bear Patroclus' body to Achilles;
And bid the snail-pac'd Ajax arm for shame.—
There is a thousand Hectors in the field:
Now here he fights on Galathe his horse8 note
,
And there lacks work; anon, he's there afoot,
And there they fly, or die, like scaled sculls9 note
-- 433 --
Before the belching whale1 note
; then is he yonder,
And there the strawy Greeks2 note, ripe for his edge,
Fall down before him, like the mower's swath3 note
:
Here, there, and every where, he leaves, and takes;
Dexterity so obeying appetite,
-- 434 --
That what he will, he does; and does so much,
That proof is call'd impossibility.
Enter Ulysses.
Ulyss.
O, courage, courage, princes! great Achilles
Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance:
Patroclus' wounds have rous'd his drowsy blood,
Together with his mangled Myrmidons,
That noseless, handless, hack'd and chipp'd, come to him,
Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend,
And foams at mouth,and he is arm'd, and at it,
Roaring for Troilus; who hath done to-day
Mad and fantastick execution;
Engaging and redeeming of himself,
With such a careless force, and forceless care,
As if that luck, in very spite of cunning,
Bade him win all.
Enter Ajax.
Ajax.
Troilus! thou coward Troilus!
[Exit.
Dio.
Ay, there, there.
Nest.
So, so, we draw together4 note.
Enter Achilles.
Achil.
Where is this Hector?
Come, come, thou boy-queller5 note, show thy face;
-- 435 --
Know what it is to meet Achilles angry.
Hector! where's Hector? I will none but Hector.
[Exeunt.
James Boswell [1821], The plays and poems of William Shakspeare, with the corrections and illustrations of various commentators: comprehending A Life of the Poet, and an enlarged history of the stage, by the late Edmond Malone. With a new glossarial index (J. Deighton and Sons, Cambridge) [word count] [S10201].
