ACT V - Scene I Troilus and Cressida

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The Grecian camp. Before Achilles’ tent.

	Enter Achilles* and Patroclus.*
Achilles	I’ll heat his blood with Greekish wine to-night, Which with my scimitar I’ll cool to-morrow. Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.
Patroclus	Here comes Thersites.
	Enter Thersites.
Achilles	How now, thou core of envy! Thou crusty batch of nature, what’s the news?
Thersites	Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of idiot-worshippers, here’s a letter for thee.
Achilles	From whence, fragment?
Thersites	Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.
Patroclus	Who keeps the tent now?
Thersites	The surgeon’s box, or the patient’s wound.
Patroclus	Well said, adversity! and what need these tricks?
Thersites	Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk: thou art thought to be Achilles’ male varlet.
Patroclus	Male varlet, you rogue! what’s that?
Thersites	Why, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-griping, ruptures, catarrhs, loads o’ gravel i’ the back, lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, limekilns i’ the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take and take again such preposterous discoveries!
Patroclus	Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus?
Thersites	Do I curse thee?
Patroclus	Why, no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.
Thersites	No! why art thou then exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sleave-silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal’s purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered with such waterflies, diminutives of nature!
Patroclus	Out, gall!
Thersites	Finch-egg!
Achilles	My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite From my great purpose in to-morrow’s battle. Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba, A token from her daughter, my fair love, Both taxing me and gaging me to keep An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it: Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay; My major vow lies here, this I’ll obey. Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent: This night in banqueting must all be spent. Away, Patroclus! Exeunt Achilles* and Patroclus.*
Thersites	With too much blood and too little brain, these two may run mad; but, if with too much brain and too little blood they do, I’ll be a curer of madmen. Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough and one that loves quails; but he has not so much brain as ear-wax: and the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull⁠—the primitive statue, and oblique memorial of cuckolds; a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother’s leg⁠—to what form but that he is, should wit larded with malice and malice forced with wit turn him to? To an ass, were nothing; he is both ass and ox: to an ox, were nothing; he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to be Menelaus! I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would be, if I were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus. Hoy-day! spirits and fires!
	Enter Hector, Troilus, Ajax, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Menelaus, and Diomedes, with lights.
Agamemnon	We go wrong, we go wrong.
Ajax	No, yonder ’tis; There, where we see the lights.
Hector	I trouble you.
Ajax	No, not a whit.
Ulysses	Here comes himself to guide you.
	Reenter Achilles.
Achilles	Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, princes all.
Agamemnon	So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good night. Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.
Hector	Thanks and good night to the Greeks’ general.
Menelaus	Good night, my lord.
Hector	Good night, sweet lord Menelaus.
Thersites	Sweet draught: “sweet” quoth ’a! sweet sink, sweet sewer.
Achilles	Good night and welcome, both at once, to those That go or tarry.
Agamemnon	Good night. Exeunt Agamemnon* and Menelaus.*
Achilles	Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed, Keep Hector company an hour or two.
Diomedes	I cannot, lord; I have important business, The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector.
Hector	Give me your hand.
Ulysses	Aside to Troilus. Follow his torch; he goes to Calchas’ tent: I’ll keep you company.
Troilus	Sweet sir, you honour me.
Hector	And so, good night. Exit Diomedes; Ulysses* and Troilus following.*
Achilles	Come, come, enter my tent. Exeunt Achilles, Hector, Ajax, and Nestor.
Thersites	That same Diomed’s a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will no more trust him when he leers than I will a serpent when he hisses: he will spend his mouth, and promise, like Brabbler the hound; but when he performs, astronomers foretell it; it is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun borrows of the moon, when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather leave to see Hector, than not to dog him: they say he keeps a Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas’ tent: I’ll after. Nothing but lechery! all incontinent varlets! Exit.

ACT V - Scene I Troilus and Cressida

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