SCENE III.
Enter Cressida and a Servant.
Cre.
Who were those went by?
Ser.
Queen Hecuba and Helen.
Cre.
And whither go they?
Ser.
Up to th' eastern tower,
Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the fight. Hector, whose patience
Is as a virtue fix'd, to-day was mov'd:
He chid Andromache, and struck his armorer,
And like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose, he was harnest light,
And to the field goes he; where ev'ry flower
Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw,
In Hector's wrath.
Cre.
What was his cause of anger?
Ser.
The noise goes thus; There is among the Greeks,
A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector,
They call him Ajax.
Cre.
Good, and what of him?
Ser.
They say he is a very man per se, and stands alone.
Cre.
So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.
-- 12 --
Ser.
This man, lady, hath robb'd many beasts of their particular
additions; he is as valiant as the lyon, churlish as the bear,
slow as the elephant; a man into whom nature hath so crouded
humours, that his valour is crusht into folly, his folly sauced with
discretion: there is no man hath a virtue, that he hath not a
glimpse of, nor any man an attaint, but he carries some stain of
it. He is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair;
he hath the joints of every thing, but every thing so out of joint,
that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purblind
Argus, all eyes and no sight.
Cre.
But how should this man (that makes me smile) make Hector
angry?
Ser.
They say, he yesterday cop'd Hector in the battel and
struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since
kept Hector fasting and waking.
George Sewell [1723–5], The works of Shakespear in six [seven] volumes. Collated and Corrected by the former Editions, By Mr. Pope ([Vol. 7] Printed by J. Darby, for A. Bettesworth [and] F. Fayram [etc.], London) [word count] [S11101].