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Troilus and Cressida - Act 5, scene 5
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Troilus and Cressida - Act 5, scene 5Act 5, scene 5
⌜Scene 5⌝
Synopsis:
Diomedes sends the horse he has won from Troilus to Cressida. Agamemnon and Nestor recount the slaughter of Greeks by the Trojans, but Ulysses announces that Achilles and Ajax are arming to join the fight.
Enter Diomedes and ⌜Servingman.⌝DIOMEDES
3377 Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus’ horse;
3378 Present the fair steed to my Lady Cressid.
3379 Fellow, commend my service to her beauty.
3380 Tell her I have chastised the amorous Trojan
3381 5 And am her knight by proof.
MAN 3382 I go, my lord.⌜He exits.⌝
Enter Agamemnon.
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249
AGAMEMNON 3383 Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamas
3384 Hath beat down Menon; bastard Margareton
3385 Hath Doreus prisoner,
3386 10 And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam
3387 Upon the pashèd corses of the kings
3388 Epistrophus and Cedius. Polyxenes is slain,
3389 Amphimachus and Thoas deadly hurt,
3390 Patroclus ta’en or slain, and Palamedes
3391 15 Sore hurt and bruised. The dreadful Sagittary
3392 Appals our numbers. Haste we, Diomed,
3393 To reinforcement, or we perish all.
Enter Nestor, ⌜with Soldiers bearing the body of
Patroclus.⌝
NESTOR
3394 Go, bear Patroclus’ body to Achilles,
3395 And bid the snail-paced Ajax arm for shame.
⌜Soldiers exit with Patroclus’s body.⌝
3396 20 There is a thousand Hectors in the field.
3397 Now here he fights on Galathe his horse,
3398 And ⌜here⌝ lacks work; anon he’s there afoot
3399 And there they fly or die, like ⟨scalèd⟩ schools
3400 Before the belching whale; then is he yonder,
3401 25 And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge,
3402 Fall down before him like a mower’s swath.
3403 Here, there, and everywhere he leaves and takes,
3404 Dexterity so obeying appetite
3405 That what he will he does, and does so much
3406 30 That proof is called impossibility.
Enter Ulysses.
ULYSSES
3407 O, courage, courage, princes! Great Achilles
3408 Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance.
3409 Patroclus’ wounds have roused his drowsy blood,
3410 Together with his mangled Myrmidons,
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251
3411
35 That noseless, handless, hacked and chipped, come3412 to him,
3413 Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend
3414 And foams at mouth, and he is armed and at it,
3415 Roaring for Troilus, who hath done today
3416 40 Mad and fantastic execution,
3417 Engaging and redeeming of himself
3418 With such a careless force and forceless care
3419 As if that ⟨luck,⟩ in very spite of cunning,
3420 Bade him win all.
Enter Ajax.
⟨AJAX⟩ 3421 45Troilus, thou coward Troilus!He exits.
DIOMEDES 3422 Ay, there, there!He exits.
NESTOR 3423 So, so, we draw together.
Enter Achilles.
ACHILLES 3424 Where is this Hector?—
3425 Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face!
3426 50 Know what it is to meet Achilles angry.
3427 Hector! Where’s Hector? I will none but Hector.
He exits, ⌜with the others.⌝