Troilus and Cressida, with line numbers E-Book

William Shakespeare

• Herausgeber: Seltzer Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 141

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Classic Shakespearean drama. According to Wikipedia: "Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. The play (also described as one of Shakespeare's problem plays) is not a conventional tragedy, since its protagonist (Troilus) does not die. The play ends instead on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between Troilus and Cressida. Throughout the play, the tone lurches wildly between bawdy comedy and tragic gloom, and readers and theatre-goers have frequently found it difficult to understand how one is meant to respond to the characters. However, several characteristic elements of the play (the most notable being its constant questioning of intrinsic values such as hierarchy, honor and love) have often been viewed as distinctly "modern"..."

Leseprobe

Troilus And Cressida By William Shakespeare

published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books

Other tragedies by William Shakespeare:

Antony and Cleopatra

Coriolanus

Hamlet

Julius Caesar

King Lear

Macbeth

Othello

Romeo and Juliet

Timon of Athens

Titus Andronicus

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Dramatis Personae

Troilus And Cressida

Prologue

Act I

Scene I Troy. Before Priam's Palace.

Scene II The Same. A Street.

Scene III The Grecian Camp. Before Agamemnon's Tent.

Act II

Scene I A Part Of The Grecian Camp.

Scene II Troy. A Room In Priam's Palace.

Scene III The Grecian Camp. Before Achilles' Tent.

Act III

Scene I Troy. Priam's Palace.

Scene II The Same. Pandarus' Orchard.

Scene III The Grecian Camp. Before Achilles' Tent.

Act IV

Scene I Troy. A Street.

Scene II The Same. Court Of Pandarus' House.

Scene III The Same. Street Before Pandarus' House.

Scene IV The Same. Pandarus' House.

Scene V The Grecian Camp. Lists Set Out.

Act V

Scene I The Grecian Camp. Before Achilles' Tent.

Scene II The Same. Before Calchas' Tent.

Scene III Troy. Before Priam's Palace.

Scene IV Plains Between Troy And The Grecian Camp.

Scene V Another Part Of The Plains.

Scene VI Another Part Of The Plains.

Scene VII Another Part Of The Plains.

Scene VIII Another Part Of The Plains.

Scene IX Another Part Of The Plains.

Scene X Another Part Of The Plains.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Priam, King Of Troy.

His Sons

Hector

Troilus

Paris

Deiphobus

Helenus

Margarelon, A Bastard Son Of Priam.

Trojan Commanders

Aeneas

Antenor

Calchas, A Trojan Priest, Taking Part With The Greeks.

Pandarus, Uncle To Cressida.

Agamemnon, The Grecian General.

Menelaus, His Brother.

Grecian Princes

Achilles

Ajax

Ulysses

Nestor

Diomedes

Patroclus

Thersites, A Deformed And Scurrilous Grecian.

Alexander, Servant To Cressida.

 Servant To Troilus. (Boy:)

 Servant To Paris.

 Servant To Diomedes. (Servant:)

Helen, Wife To Menelaus.

Andromache, Wife To Hector.

Cassandra, Daughter To Priam, A Prophetess.

Cressida, Daughter To Calchas.

 Trojan And Greek Soldiers, And Attendants.

SCENE Troy, and the Grecian camp before it.

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

 PROLOGUE

(1) In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece

 The princes orgulous, their high blood chafed,

 Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,

 Fraught with the ministers and instruments

 Of cruel war: sixty and nine, that wore

 Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay

 Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made

 To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures

 The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,

(10) With wanton Paris sleeps; and that's the quarrel.

 To Tenedos they come;

 And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge

 Their warlike fraughtage: now on Dardan plains

 The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch

 Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,

 Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,

 And Antenorides, with massy staples

 And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,

 Sperr up the sons of Troy.

(20) Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,

 On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,

 Sets all on hazard: and hither am I come

 A prologue arm'd, but not in confidence

 Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited

 In like conditions as our argument,

 To tell you, fair beholders, that our play

 Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,

 Beginning in the middle, starting thence away

 To what may be digested in a play.

(30) Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are:

 Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.

ACT I

SCENE I Troy. Before Priam's palace.

 [Enter TROILUS armed, and PANDARUS]

(1) TROILUS Call here my varlet; I'll unarm again:

 Why should I war without the walls of Troy,

 That find such cruel battle here within?

 Each Trojan that is master of his heart,

 Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.

PANDARUS Will this gear ne'er be mended?

TROILUS The Greeks are strong and skilful to their strength,

 Fierce to their skill and to their fierceness valiant;

 But I am weaker than a woman's tear,

(10) Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,

 Less valiant than the virgin in the night

 And skilless as unpractised infancy.

PANDARUS Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part,

 I'll not meddle nor make no further. He that will

 have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.

TROILUS Have I not tarried?

PANDARUS Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry

 the bolting.

TROILUS Have I not tarried?

(20) PANDARUS Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leavening.

TROILUS Still have I tarried.

PANDARUS Ay, to the leavening; but here's yet in the word

 'hereafter' the kneading, the making of the cake, the

 heating of the oven and the baking; nay, you must

 stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.

TROILUS Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,

 Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do.

 At Priam's royal table do I sit;

(30) And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,--

 So, traitor! 'When she comes!' When is she thence?

PANDARUS Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw

 her look, or any woman else.

TROILUS I was about to tell thee:--when my heart,

 As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,

 Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,

 I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,

 Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile:

 But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness,

(40) Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

PANDARUS An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's--

 well, go to--there were no more comparison between

 the women: but, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I

 would not, as they term it, praise her: but I would

 somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I

 will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, but--

TROILUS O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,--

 When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd,

(50) Reply not in how many fathoms deep

 They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad

 In Cressid's love: thou answer'st 'she is fair;'

 Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart

 Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,

 Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand,

 In whose comparison all whites are ink,

 Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure

 The cygnet's down is harsh and spirit of sense

 Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell'st me,

(60) As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her;

 But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,

 Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me

 The knife that made it.

PANDARUS I speak no more than truth.

TROILUS Thou dost not speak so much.

PANDARUS Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is:

 if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be

 not, she has the mends in her own hands.

(70) TROILUS Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus!

PANDARUS I have had my labour for my travail; ill-thought on of

 her and ill-thought on of you; gone between and

 between, but small thanks for my labour.

TROILUS What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me?

PANDARUS Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair

 as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as

 fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care

(80) I? I care not an she were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me.

TROILUS Say I she is not fair?

PANDARUS I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to

 stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so

 I'll tell her the next time I see her: for my part,

 I'll meddle nor make no more i' the matter.

TROILUS Pandarus,--

PANDARUS Not I.

TROILUS Sweet Pandarus,--

(90) PANDARUS Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I

 found it, and there an end.

 [Exit PANDARUS. An alarum]

TROILUS Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!

 Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,

 When with your blood you daily paint her thus.

 I cannot fight upon this argument;

 It is too starved a subject for my sword.

 But Pandarus,--O gods, how do you plague me!

 I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;

 And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo.

(100) As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.

 Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,

 What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?

 Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:

 Between our Ilium and where she resides,

 Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood,

 Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar

 Our doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark.

 [Alarum. Enter AENEAS]

AENEAS How now, Prince Troilus! wherefore not afield?

TROILUS Because not there: this woman's answer sorts,

(110) For womanish it is to be from thence.

 What news, AEneas, from the field to-day?

AENEAS That Paris is returned home and hurt.

TROILUS By whom, Aeneas?

AENEAS                   Troilus, by Menelaus.

TROILUS Let Paris bleed; 'tis but a scar to scorn;

 Paris is gored with Menelaus' horn.

 [Alarum]

AENEAS Hark, what good sport is out of town to-day!

TROILUS Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may.'

 But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither?

(120) AENEAS In all swift haste.

TROILUS Come, go we then together.

 [Exeunt]

SCENE II The Same. A street.

 [Enter CRESSIDA and ALEXANDER]

(1) CRESSIDA Who were those went by?

ALEXANDER Queen Hecuba and Helen.

CRESSIDA And whither go they?

ALEXANDER Up to the eastern tower,

 Whose height commands as subject all the vale,

 To see the battle. Hector, whose patience

 Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was moved:

 He chid Andromache and struck his armourer,

 And, like as there were husbandry in war,

 Before the sun rose he was harness'd light,

 And to the field goes he; where every flower

(10) Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw

 In Hector's wrath.

CRESSIDA                   What was his cause of anger?

ALEXANDER The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks

 A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;

 They call him Ajax.

CRESSIDA Good; and what of him?

ALEXANDER They say he is a very man per se,

 And stands alone.

CRESSIDA So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

ALEXANDER This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their

(20) particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion,

 churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man

 into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his

 valour is crushed 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 everything so out of joint

 that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use,

(30) or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

CRESSIDA But how should this man, that makes

 me smile, make Hector angry?

ALEXANDER They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle and

 struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath

 ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.

CRESSIDA Who comes here?

ALEXANDER Madam, your uncle Pandarus.

 [Enter PANDARUS]

(40) CRESSIDA Hector's a gallant man.

ALEXANDER As may be in the world, lady.

PANDARUS What's that? what's that?

CRESSIDA Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

PANDARUS Good morrow, cousin Cressid: what do you talk of?

 Good morrow, Alexander. How do you, cousin? When

 were you at Ilium?

CRESSIDA This morning, uncle.

PANDARUS What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector

(50) armed and gone ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not

 up, was she?

CRESSIDA Hector was gone, but Helen was not up.

PANDARUS Even so: Hector was stirring early.

CRESSIDA That were we talking of, and of his anger.

PANDARUS Was he angry?

CRESSIDA So he says here.

PANDARUS True, he was so: I know the cause too: he'll lay

 about him to-day, I can tell them that: and there's

(60) Troilus will not come far behind him: let them take

 heed of Troilus, I can tell them that too.

CRESSIDA What, is he angry too?

PANDARUS Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.

CRESSIDA O Jupiter! there's no comparison.

PANDARUS What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a

 man if you see him?

CRESSIDA Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him.

(70) PANDARUS Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.

CRESSIDA Then you say as I say; for, I am sure, he is not Hector.

PANDARUS No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees.

CRESSIDA 'Tis just to each of them; he is himself.

PANDARUS Himself! Alas, poor Troilus! I would he were.

CRESSIDA So he is.

(80) PANDARUS Condition, I had gone barefoot to India.

CRESSIDA He is not Hector.

PANDARUS Himself! no, he's not himself: would a' were

 himself! Well, the gods are above; time must friend

 or end: well, Troilus, well: I would my heart were

 in her body. No, Hector is not a better man than Troilus.

CRESSIDA Excuse me.

PANDARUS He is elder.

CRESSIDA Pardon me, pardon me.

(90) PANDARUS Th' other's not come to't; you shall tell me another

 tale, when th' other's come to't. Hector shall not

 have his wit this year.

CRESSIDA He shall not need it, if he have his own.

PANDARUS Nor his qualities.

CRESSIDA No matter.

PANDARUS Nor his beauty.

CRESSIDA 'Twould not become him; his own's better.

PANDARUS You have no judgment, niece: Helen

(100) herself swore th' other day, that Troilus, for

 a brown favour--for so 'tis, I must confess,--

 not brown neither,--

CRESSIDA No, but brown.

PANDARUS 'Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.

CRESSIDA To say the truth, true and not true.

PANDARUS She praised his complexion above Paris.

CRESSIDA Why, Paris hath colour enough.

PANDARUS So he has.

(110) CRESSIDA Then Troilus should have too much: if she praised

 him above, his complexion is higher than his; he

 having colour enough, and the other higher, is too

 flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as

 lief Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for

 a copper nose.

PANDARUS I swear to you. I think Helen loves him better than Paris.

CRESSIDA Then she's a merry Greek indeed.

PANDARUS Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th' other

(120) day into the compassed window,--and, you know, he

 has not past three or four hairs on his chin,--

CRESSIDA Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his

 particulars therein to a total.

PANDARUS Why, he is very young: and yet will he, within

 three pound, lift as much as his brother Hector.

CRESSIDA Is he so young a man and so old a lifter?

PANDARUS But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she came

(130) and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin--

CRESSIDA Juno have mercy! how came it cloven?

PANDARUS Why, you know 'tis dimpled: I think his smiling

 becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia.

CRESSIDA O, he smiles valiantly.

PANDARUS Does he not?

CRESSIDA O yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn.

(140) PANDARUS Why, go to, then: but to prove to you that Helen

 loves Troilus,--

CRESSIDA Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll

 prove it so.

PANDARUS Troilus! why, he esteems her no more than I esteem

 an addle egg.

CRESSIDA If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle

 head, you would eat chickens i' the shell.

PANDARUS I cannot choose but laugh, to think how she tickled

 his chin: indeed, she has a marvellous white hand, I

(150) must needs confess,--

CRESSIDA Without the rack.

PANDARUS And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.

CRESSIDA Alas, poor chin! many a wart is richer.

PANDARUS But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laughed

 that her eyes ran o'er.

CRESSIDA With mill-stones.

PANDARUS And Cassandra laughed.

(160) CRESSIDA But there was more temperate fire under the pot of

 her eyes: did her eyes run o'er too?

PANDARUS And Hector laughed.

CRESSIDA At what was all this laughing?

PANDARUS Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus' chin.