Troilus and Cressida

Ulysses
All’s done, my lord.
Troilus
It is.
Ulysses
Why stay we then?
Troilus
To make a recordation to my soul
Of every syllable that here was spoke.
But if I tell how these two did co-act,
Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?
Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,
… continue reading this quote

This she? No, this is Diomed’s Cressida.
If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,
If sanctimony be the gods’ delight,
If there be rule in unity itself,
This is not she. O madness of discourse,
That cause sets up with and against itself!
Bifold authority, where reason can revolt
Without perdition,
… continue reading this quote

Hector
Begone, I say. The gods have heard me swear.
Cassandra
The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows.
They are polluted off’rings more abhorred
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.
Andromache, to Hector
O, be persuaded! Do not count it holy
To hurt by being just.
… continue reading this quote

Troilus
Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you
Which better fits a lion than a man.
Hector
What vice is that? Good Troilus, chide me for it.
Troilus
When many times the captive Grecian falls,
Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
You bid them rise and live.
… continue reading this quote

Pandarus
Here’s a letter come from yond poor girl.
Troilus
Let me read. He reads.

Words, words, mere words,
no matter from the heart.

Pandarus
A whoreson phthisic, a whoreson rascally
phthisic so troubles me, and the foolish fortune of
this girl, and what one thing,
… continue reading this quote

Thersites
Now they are clapper-clawing one another.
I’ll go look on. That dissembling abominable varlet,
Diomed, has got that same scurvy doting foolish
young knave’s sleeve of Troy there in his helm.Diasyrmus

Nestor, and that same dog-fox,
Ulysses—is proved not worth a blackberry.

I would fain see them meet,
… continue reading this quote

Troilus
Hector is slain.
All
Hector! The gods forbid!
Troilus
He’s dead, and at the murderer’s horse’s tail,
In beastly sort, dragged through the shameful field.
Frown on, you heavens; effect your rage with speed.
Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smite at Troy!
I say at once: let your brief plagues be mercy,
… continue reading this quote

A goodly medicine for my aching bones!
O world, world, world ! Thus is the poor agent despised.
O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are
you set a-work, and how ill requited! Why should
our endeavor be so loved and the performance so
loathed? What verse for it? What instance for it?
Let me see:

Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing,
… continue reading this quote