Troilus and Cressida
Act V, Scene 3
Troy. Before Priam’s palace.
Andromache
Frederic Leighton, circa 1887
- Enter Hector and Andromache.
Andromache
1 - 3- When was my lord so much ungently temper’d
- To stop his ears against admonishment?
- Unarm, unarm, and do not fight today.
Hector
4 - 5- You train me to offend you, get you in.
- By all the everlasting gods, I’ll go!
Andromache
6- My dreams will sure prove ominous to the day.
Hector
7- No more, I say.
- Enter Cassandra.
Cassandra
8- Where is my brother Hector?
Andromache
9 - 13- Here, sister, arm’d, and bloody in intent.
- Consort with me in loud and dear petition,
- Pursue we him on knees; for I have dreamt
- Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night
- Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.
Cassandra
14- O, ’tis true.
Hector
15- Ho! Bid my trumpet sound!
Cassandra
16- No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother.
Hector
17- Be gone, I say, the gods have heard me swear.
Cassandra
18 - 20- The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows;
- They are polluted off’rings, more abhorr’d
- Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.
Andromache
21 - 24- O, be persuaded! Do not count it holy
- To hurt by being just; it is as lawful,
- For we would give much, to use violent thefts,
- And rob in the behalf of charity.
Cassandra
25 - 27- It is the purpose that makes strong the vow,
- But vows to every purpose must not hold;
- Unarm, sweet Hector.
Hector
28 - 32- Hold you still, I say;
- Mine honor keeps the weather of my fate.
- Life every man holds dear, but the dear man
- Holds honor far more precious-dear than life.
- Enter Troilus.
- How now, young man, meanest thou to fight today?
Andromache
33- Cassandra, call my father to persuade.
- Exit Cassandra.
Hector
34 - 39- No, faith, young Troilus, doff thy harness, youth,
- I am today i’ th’ vein of chivalry.
- Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong,
- And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.
- Unarm thee, go, and doubt thou not, brave boy,
- I’ll stand today for thee and me and Troy.
Troilus
40 - 41- Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
- Which better fits a lion than a man.
Hector
42- What vice is that? Good Troilus, chide me for it.
Troilus
43 - 45- When many times the captive Grecian falls,
- Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
- You bid them rise and live.
Hector
46- O, ’tis fair play.
Troilus
47- Fool’s play, by heaven, Hector.
Hector
48- How now? How now?
Troilus
49 - 53- For th’ love of all the gods,
- Let’s leave the hermit pity with our mother,
- And when we have our armors buckled on,
- The venom’d vengeance ride upon our swords,
- Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth.
Hector
54- Fie, savage, fie!
Troilus
55- Hector, then ’tis wars.
Hector
56- Troilus, I would not have you fight today.
Troilus
57 - 64- Who should withhold me?
- Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars
- Beck’ning with fiery truncheon my retire,
- Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,
- Their eyes o’ergalled with recourse of tears,
- Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,
- Oppos’d to hinder me, should stop my way,
- But by my ruin.
- Enter Priam and Cassandra.
Cassandra
65 - 68- Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast,
- He is thy crutch. Now if thou lose thy stay,
- Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,
- Fall all together.
Byam Shaw, 1901
Priam
69 - 74- Come, Hector, come, go back.
- Thy wife hath dreamt, thy mother hath had visions,
- Cassandra doth foresee, and I myself
- Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt
- To tell thee that this day is ominous:
- Therefore come back.
Hector
75 - 78- Aeneas is a-field,
- And I do stand engag’d to many Greeks,
- Even in the faith of valor, to appear
- This morning to them.
Priam
79- Ay, but thou shalt not go.
Hector
80 - 84- I must not break my faith.
- You know me dutiful, therefore, dear sir,
- Let me not shame respect, but give me leave
- To take that course by your consent and voice,
- Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.
Cassandra
85- O Priam, yield not to him.
Andromache
86- Do not, dear father.
Hector
87 - 88- Andromache, I am offended with you,
- Upon the love you bear me, get you in.
- Exit Andromache.
Troilus
89 - 90- This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl
- Makes all these bodements.
Cassandra
91 - 98- O, farewell, dear Hector.
- Look how thou diest, look how thy eye turns pale.
- Look how thy wounds do bleed at many vents,
- Hark how Troy roars, how Hecuba cries out,
- How poor Andromache shrills her dolors forth.
- Behold, distraction, frenzy, and amazement,
- Like witless antics, one another meet,
- And all cry, Hector! Hector’s dead! O Hector!
Troilus
99- Away, away.
Cassandra
100 - 101- Farewell; yet soft: Hector, I take my leave.
- Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.
- Exit.
Hector
102 - 104- You are amaz’d, my liege, at her exclaim.
- Go in and cheer the town. We’ll forth and fight,
- Do deeds worth praise, and tell you them at night.
Priam
105- Farewell, the gods with safety stand about thee!
- Exeunt severally Priam and Hector. Alarum.
Troilus
106 - 107- They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe,
- I come to lose my arm, or win my sleeve.
- Enter Pandar.
Pandarus
108- Do you hear, my lord? Do you hear?
Troilus
109- What now?
Pandarus
110- Here’s a letter come from yond poor girl.
Troilus
111- Let me read.
Pandarus
112 - 117- A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick so troubles
- me, and the foolish fortune of this girl, and what one
- thing, what another, that I shall leave you one a’ th’s
- days; and I have a rheum in mine eyes too, and such an ache
- in my bones, that unless a man were curs’d, I cannot tell
- what to think on’t. What says she there?
Troilus
118 - 122- Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart;
- Th’ effect doth operate another way.
- Tearing the letter.
- Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together.
- My love with words and errors still she feeds,
- But edifies another with her deeds.
- Exeunt severally.
Hector, Andromache, and Cassandra
James Fittler; John & Josiah Boydell, printmakers; Thomas Kirk; 1795