Troilus and Cressida

with dirt,
To weaken and discredit our exposure,
How rank soever rounded in with danger. Ulysses

They tax our policy, and call it cowardice,
Count wisdom as no member of the war,
Forestall prescience, and esteem no act
But that of hand: the still and mental parts,
That do contrive how many hands shall strike,
When fitness calls them on, and know by measure
Of their observant toil the enemies’ weight⁠—
Why, this hath not a finger’s dignity:
They call this bed-work, mappery, closet-war;
So that the ram that batters down the wall,
For the great swing and rudeness of his poise,
They place before his hand that made the engine,
Or those that with the fineness of their souls
By reason guide his execution.

Nestor

Let this be granted, and Achilles’ horse
Makes many Thetis’ sons. A tucket.

Agamemnon What trumpet? look, Menelaus. Menelaus From Troy. Enter Aeneas. Agamemnon What would you ’fore our tent? Aeneas Is this great Agamemnon’s tent, I pray you? Agamemnon Even this. Aeneas

May one, that is a herald and a prince,
Do a fair message to his kingly ears?

Agamemnon

With surety stronger than Achilles’ arm
’Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice
Call Agamemnon head and general.

Aeneas

Fair leave and large security. How may
A stranger to those most imperial looks
Know them from eyes of other mortals?

Agamemnon How! Aeneas

Ay;
I ask, that I might waken reverence,
And bid the cheek be ready with a blush
Modest as morning when she coldly eyes
The youthful Phoebus:
Which is that god in office, guiding men?
Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?

Agamemnon

This Trojan scorns us; or the men of Troy
Are ceremonious courtiers.

Aeneas

Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm’d,
As bending angels; that’s their fame in peace:
But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls,
Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and, Jove’s accord,
Nothing so full of heart. But peace, Aeneas,
Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips!
The worthiness of praise distains his worth,
If that the praised himself bring the praise forth:
But what the repining enemy commends,
That breath fame blows; that praise, sole pure, transcends.

Agamemnon Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Aeneas? Aeneas Ay, Greek, that is my name. Agamemnon What’s your affair, I pray you? Aeneas Sir, pardon; ’tis for Agamemnon’s ears. Agamemnon He hears nought privately that comes from Troy. Aeneas

Nor I from Troy come not to whisper him:
I bring a trumpet to awake his ear,
To set his sense on the attentive bent,
And then to speak.

Agamemnon

Speak frankly as the wind;
It is not Agamemnon’s sleeping hour:
That thou shalt know, Trojan, he is awake,
He tells thee so himself.

Aeneas

Trumpet, blow loud,
Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;
And every Greek of mettle, let him know,
What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud. Trumpet sounds.
We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy
A prince call’d Hector⁠—Priam is his father⁠—
Who in this dull and long-continued truce
Is rusty grown: he bade me take a trumpet,
And to this purpose speak. Kings, princes, lords!
If there be one among the fair’st of Greece
That holds his honour higher than his ease,
That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril,
That knows his valour, and knows not his fear,
That loves his mistress more than in confession,
With truant vows to her own lips he loves,
And dare avow her beauty and her worth
In other arms than hers⁠—to him this challenge.
Hector, in view of Trojans and of Greeks,
Shall make it good, or do his best to do it,
He hath a lady, wiser, fairer, truer,
Than ever Greek did compass in his arms,
And will to-morrow with his trumpet call
Midway between your tents and walls of Troy,
To rouse a Grecian that is true in love:
If any come, Hector shall honour him;
If none, he’ll say in Troy when he retires,
The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth
The splinter of a lance. Even so much.

Agamemnon

This shall be told our lovers, Lord Aeneas;
If none of them have soul in such a kind,
We left them all at home: but we are soldiers;
And may that soldier a mere recreant prove,
That means not, hath not, or is not in love!
If then one is, or hath, or means to be,
That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he.

Nestor

Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man
When Hector’s grandsire suck’d: he is old now;
But if there be not in our Grecian host
One noble man that hath one spark of fire,
To answer for his love, tell him from me
I’ll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver
And in my vantbrace put this wither’d brawn,
And meeting him will tell him that my lady
Was fairer than his grandam and as chaste
As may be in the world: his youth in flood,
I’ll prove this truth with my three drops of blood.

Aeneas Now heavens forbid such scarcity of youth! Ulysses Amen. Agamemnon

Fair Lord Aeneas, let me touch your hand;
To our pavilion shall I lead you, sir.
Achilles shall have word of this intent;
So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent:
Yourself shall feast with us before you go
And find the welcome of a noble foe. Exeunt all but Ulysses and Nestor.

Ulysses Nestor! Nestor What says Ulysses? Ulysses

I have a young conception in my brain;
Be you my time to bring it to some shape.

Nestor What is’t? Ulysses

This ’tis:
Blunt wedges rive hard knots: the seeded pride
That hath to this maturity blown up
In rank Achilles must or now be cropp’d,
Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil,
To overbulk us all.

Nestor Well, and how? Ulysses

This challenge that the gallant Hector sends,
However it is spread in general name,
Relates in purpose only to Achilles.

Nestor

The purpose is perspicuous even as substance,
Whose grossness little characters sum up:
And, in the publication, make no strain,
But that Achilles, were his brain as barren
As banks of Libya⁠—though, Apollo knows,
’Tis dry enough⁠—will, with great speed of judgment,
Ay, with celerity, find Hector’s purpose
Pointing on him.

Ulysses And wake him to the answer, think you? Nestor

Yes, ’tis most meet: whom may you else oppose,
That can from Hector bring his honour off,
If not Achilles? Though’t be a sportful combat,
Yet in the trial much opinion dwells;
For here the Trojans taste our dear’st repute
With their finest palate: and trust to me, Ulysses,
Our