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Speeches (Lines) for Troilus
in "Troilus and Cressida"

Total: 131

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# Act, Scene, Line
(Click to see in context)
Speech text

1

I,1,33

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.

2

I,1,39

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,
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
Less valiant than the virgin in the night
And skilless as unpractised infancy.

3

I,1,48

Have I not tarried?

4

I,1,51

Have I not tarried?

5

I,1,53

Still have I tarried.

6

I,1,58

Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be,
Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do.
At Priam's royal table do I sit;
And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,—
So, traitor! 'When she comes!' When is she thence?

7

I,1,65

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,
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

8

I,1,78

O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,—
When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd,
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,
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.

9

I,1,95

Thou dost not speak so much.

10

I,1,99

Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus!

11

I,1,103

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

12

I,1,108

Say I she is not fair?

13

I,1,113

Pandarus,—

14

I,1,115

Sweet Pandarus,—

15

I,1,119

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.
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.

16

I,1,137

Because not there: this woman's answer sorts,
For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, AEneas, from the field to-day?

17

I,1,141

By whom, AEneas?

18

I,1,143

Let Paris bleed; 'tis but a scar to scorn;
Paris is gored with Menelaus' horn.

19

I,1,147

Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may.'
But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither?

20

I,1,150

Come, go we then together.

21

II,2,1015

Fie, fie, my brother!
Weigh you the worth and honour of a king
So great as our dread father in a scale
Of common ounces? will you with counters sum
The past proportion of his infinite?
And buckle in a waist most fathomless
With spans and inches so diminutive
As fears and reasons? fie, for godly shame!

22

II,2,1027

You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest;
You fur your gloves with reason. Here are
your reasons:
You know an enemy intends you harm;
You know a sword employ'd is perilous,
And reason flies the object of all harm:
Who marvels then, when Helenus beholds
A Grecian and his sword, if he do set
The very wings of reason to his heels
And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,
Or like a star disorb'd? Nay, if we talk of reason,
Let's shut our gates and sleep: manhood and honour
Should have hare-hearts, would they but fat
their thoughts
With this cramm'd reason: reason and respect
Make livers pale and lustihood deject.

23

II,2,1045

What is aught, but as 'tis valued?

24

II,2,1054

I take to-day a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will;
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots 'twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgment: how may I avoid,
Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I chose? there can be no evasion
To blench from this and to stand firm by honour:
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant,
When we have soil'd them, nor the remainder viands
We do not throw in unrespective sieve,
Because we now are full. It was thought meet
Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks:
Your breath of full consent bellied his sails;
The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce
And did him service: he touch'd the ports desired,
And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive,
He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes stale the morning.
Why keep we her? the Grecians keep our aunt:
Is she worth keeping? why, she is a pearl,
Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships,
And turn'd crown'd kings to merchants.
If you'll avouch 'twas wisdom Paris went—
As you must needs, for you all cried 'Go, go,'—
If you'll confess he brought home noble prize—
As you must needs, for you all clapp'd your hands
And cried 'Inestimable!'—why do you now
The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,
And do a deed that fortune never did,
Beggar the estimation which you prized
Richer than sea and land? O, theft most base,
That we have stol'n what we do fear to keep!
But, thieves, unworthy of a thing so stol'n,
That in their country did them that disgrace,
We fear to warrant in our native place!

25

II,2,1092

'Tis our mad sister, I do know her voice.

26

II,2,1115

Why, brother Hector,
We may not think the justness of each act
Such and no other than event doth form it,
Nor once deject the courage of our minds,
Because Cassandra's mad: her brain-sick raptures
Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel
Which hath our several honours all engaged
To make it gracious. For my private part,
I am no more touch'd than all Priam's sons:
And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us
Such things as might offend the weakest spleen
To fight for and maintain!

27

II,2,1192

Why, there you touch'd the life of our design:
Were it not glory that we more affected
Than the performance of our heaving spleens,
I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood
Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,
She is a theme of honour and renown,
A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,
Whose present courage may beat down our foes,
And fame in time to come canonize us;
For, I presume, brave Hector would not lose
So rich advantage of a promised glory
As smiles upon the forehead of this action
For the wide world's revenue.

28

III,2,1654

Sirrah, walk off.

29

III,2,1657

No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door,
Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks
Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
And give me swift transportance to those fields
Where I may wallow in the lily-beds
Proposed for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus,
From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings
And fly with me to Cressid!

30

III,2,1667

I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
The imaginary relish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense: what will it be,
When that the watery palate tastes indeed
Love's thrice repured nectar? death, I fear me,
Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine,
Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness,
For the capacity of my ruder powers:
I fear it much; and I do fear besides,
That I shall lose distinction in my joys;
As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
The enemy flying.

31

III,2,1687

Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom:
My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse;
And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
Like vassalage at unawares encountering
The eye of majesty.

32

III,2,1707

You have bereft me of all words, lady.

33

III,2,1715

O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus!

34

III,2,1717

What should they grant? what makes this pretty
abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet
lady in the fountain of our love?

35

III,2,1721

Fears make devils of cherubims; they never see truly.

36

III,2,1725

O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's
pageant there is presented no monster.

37

III,2,1728

Nothing, but our undertakings; when we vow to weep
seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking
it harder for our mistress to devise imposition
enough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed.
This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the will
is infinite and the execution confined, that the
desire is boundless and the act a slave to limit.

38

III,2,1741

Are there such? such are not we: praise us as we
are tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go
bare till merit crown it: no perfection in reversion
shall have a praise in present: we will not name
desert before his birth, and, being born, his addition
shall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus
shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst
shall be a mock for his truth, and what truth can
speak truest not truer than Troilus.

39

III,2,1757

You know now your hostages; your uncle's word and my
firm faith.

40

III,2,1766

Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?

41

III,2,1784

And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.

42

III,2,1790

Your leave, sweet Cressid!

43

III,2,1793

What offends you, lady?

44

III,2,1795

You cannot shun Yourself.

45

III,2,1801

Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.

46

III,2,1807

O that I thought it could be in a woman—
As, if it can, I will presume in you—
To feed for aye her ramp and flames of love;
To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
Outliving beauty's outward, with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays!
Or that persuasion could but thus convince me,
That my integrity and truth to you
Might be affronted with the match and weight
Of such a winnow'd purity in love;
How were I then uplifted! but, alas!
I am as true as truth's simplicity
And simpler than the infancy of truth.

47

III,2,1821

O virtuous fight,
When right with right wars who shall be most right!
True swains in love shall in the world to come
Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes,
Full of protest, of oath and big compare,
Want similes, truth tired with iteration,
As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre,
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
As truth's authentic author to be cited,
'As true as Troilus' shall crown up the verse,
And sanctify the numbers.

48

III,2,1856

Amen.

49

IV,2,2286

Dear, trouble not yourself: the morn is cold.

50

IV,2,2289

Trouble him not;
To bed, to bed: sleep kill those pretty eyes,
And give as soft attachment to thy senses
As infants' empty of all thought!

51

IV,2,2294

I prithee now, to bed.

52

IV,2,2296

O Cressida! but that the busy day,
Waked by the lark, hath roused the ribald crows,
And dreaming night will hide our joys no longer,
I would not from thee.

53

IV,2,2301

Beshrew the witch! with venomous wights she stays
As tediously as hell, but flies the grasps of love
With wings more momentary-swift than thought.
You will catch cold, and curse me.

54

IV,2,2311

It is your uncle.

55

IV,2,2331

Ha, ha!

56

IV,2,2355

How now! what's the matter?

57

IV,2,2364

Is it so concluded?

58

IV,2,2367

How my achievements mock me!
I will go meet them: and, my Lord AEneas,
We met by chance; you did not find me here.

59

IV,3,2416

Walk into her house;
I'll bring her to the Grecian presently:
And to his hand when I deliver her,
Think it an altar, and thy brother Troilus
A priest there offering to it his own heart.

60

IV,4,2452

Cressid, I love thee in so strain'd a purity,
That the bless'd gods, as angry with my fancy,
More bright in zeal than the devotion which
Cold lips blow to their deities, take thee from me.

61

IV,4,2459

A hateful truth.

62

IV,4,2461

From Troy and Troilus.

63

IV,4,2463

And suddenly; where injury of chance
Puts back leave-taking, justles roughly by
All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips
Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents
Our lock'd embrasures, strangles our dear vows
Even in the birth of our own labouring breath:
We two, that with so many thousand sighs
Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves
With the rude brevity and discharge of one.
Injurious time now with a robber's haste
Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how:
As many farewells as be stars in heaven,
With distinct breath and consign'd kisses to them,
He fumbles up into a lose adieu,
And scants us with a single famish'd kiss,
Distasted with the salt of broken tears.

64

IV,4,2480

Hark! you are call'd: some say the Genius so
Cries 'come' to him that instantly must die.
Bid them have patience; she shall come anon.

65

IV,4,2487

No remedy.

66

IV,4,2490

Hear me, my love: be thou but true of heart,—

67

IV,4,2492

Nay, we must use expostulation kindly,
For it is parting from us:
I speak not 'be thou true,' as fearing thee,
For I will throw my glove to Death himself,
That there's no maculation in thy heart:
But 'be thou true,' say I, to fashion in
My sequent protestation; be thou true,
And I will see thee.

68

IV,4,2502

And I'll grow friend with danger. Wear this sleeve.

69

IV,4,2504

I will corrupt the Grecian sentinels,
To give thee nightly visitation.
But yet be true.

70

IV,4,2508

Hear while I speak it, love:
The Grecian youths are full of quality;
They're loving, well composed with gifts of nature,
Flowing and swelling o'er with arts and exercise:
How novelty may move, and parts with person,
Alas, a kind of godly jealousy—
Which, I beseech you, call a virtuous sin—
Makes me afeard.

71

IV,4,2517

Die I a villain, then!
In this I do not call your faith in question
So mainly as my merit: I cannot sing,
Nor heel the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk,
Nor play at subtle games; fair virtues all,
To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant:
But I can tell that in each grace of these
There lurks a still and dumb-discoursive devil
That tempts most cunningly: but be not tempted.

72

IV,4,2527

No.
But something may be done that we will not:
And sometimes we are devils to ourselves,
When we will tempt the frailty of our powers,
Presuming on their changeful potency.

73

IV,4,2533

Come, kiss; and let us part.

74

IV,4,2535

Good brother, come you hither;
And bring AEneas and the Grecian with you.

75

IV,4,2538

Who, I? alas, it is my vice, my fault:
Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion,
I with great truth catch mere simplicity;
Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,
With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.
Fear not my truth: the moral of my wit
Is 'plain and true;' there's all the reach of it.
[Enter AENEAS, PARIS, ANTENOR, DEIPHOBUS,]
and DIOMEDES]
Welcome, Sir Diomed! here is the lady
Which for Antenor we deliver you:
At the port, lord, I'll give her to thy hand,
And by the way possess thee what she is.
Entreat her fair; and, by my soul, fair Greek,
If e'er thou stand at mercy of my sword,
Name Cressida and thy life shall be as safe
As Priam is in Ilion.

76

IV,4,2560

Grecian, thou dost not use me courteously,
To shame the zeal of my petition to thee
In praising her: I tell thee, lord of Greece,
She is as far high-soaring o'er thy praises
As thou unworthy to be call'd her servant.
I charge thee use her well, even for my charge;
For, by the dreadful Pluto, if thou dost not,
Though the great bulk Achilles be thy guard,
I'll cut thy throat.

77

IV,4,2576

Come, to the port. I'll tell thee, Diomed,
This brave shall oft make thee to hide thy head.
Lady, give me your hand, and, as we walk,
To our own selves bend we our needful talk.

78

IV,5,2731

Hector, thou sleep'st;
Awake thee!

79

IV,5,2910

My Lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,
In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?

80

IV,5,2917

Shall sweet lord, be bound to you so much,
After we part from Agamemnon's tent,
To bring me thither?

81

IV,5,2924

O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars
A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord?
She was beloved, she loved; she is, and doth:
But still sweet love is food for fortune's tooth.

82

V,1,3028

Sweet sir, you honour me.

83

V,2,3054

Cressid comes forth to him.

84

V,2,3058

Yea, so familiar!

85

V,2,3066

What should she remember?

86

V,2,3079

Hold, patience!

87

V,2,3083

Thy better must.

88

V,2,3085

O plague and madness!

89

V,2,3090

Behold, I pray you!

90

V,2,3093

I pray thee, stay.

91

V,2,3095

I pray you, stay; by hell and all hell's torments
I will not speak a word!

92

V,2,3099

Doth that grieve thee?
O wither'd truth!

93

V,2,3102

By Jove,
I will be patient.

94

V,2,3109

She strokes his cheek!

95

V,2,3111

Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word:
There is between my will and all offences
A guard of patience: stay a little while.

96

V,2,3122

Fear me not, sweet lord;
I will not be myself, nor have cognition
Of what I feel: I am all patience.

97

V,2,3128

O beauty! where is thy faith?

98

V,2,3130

I will be patient; outwardly I will.

99

V,2,3148

I did swear patience.

100

V,2,3161

Wert thou the devil, and worest it on thy horn,
It should be challenged.

101

V,2,3186

It is.

102

V,2,3188

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,
An esperance so obstinately strong,
That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears,
As if those organs had deceptious functions,
Created only to calumniate.
Was Cressid here?

103

V,2,3199

She was not, sure.

104

V,2,3201

Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.

105

V,2,3203

Let it not be believed for womanhood!
Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage
To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme,
For depravation, to square the general sex
By Cressid's rule: rather think this not Cressid.

106

V,2,3209

Nothing at all, unless that this were she.

107

V,2,3211

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!
Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt
Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid.
Within my soul there doth conduce a fight
Of this strange nature that a thing inseparate
Divides more wider than the sky and earth,
And yet the spacious breadth of this division
Admits no orifex for a point as subtle
As Ariachne's broken woof to enter.
Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto's gates;
Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven:
Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself;
The bonds of heaven are slipp'd, dissolved, and loosed;
And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics
Of her o'er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed.

108

V,2,3237

Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well
In characters as red as Mars his heart
Inflamed with Venus: never did young man fancy
With so eternal and so fix'd a soul.
Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love,
So much by weight hate I her Diomed:
That sleeve is mine that he'll bear on his helm;
Were it a casque composed by Vulcan's skill,
My sword should bite it: not the dreadful spout
Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
Constringed in mass by the almighty sun,
Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune's ear
In his descent than shall my prompted sword
Falling on Diomed.

109

V,2,3252

O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false!
Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,
And they'll seem glorious.

110

V,2,3261

Have with you, prince. My courteous lord, adieu.
Farewell, revolted fair! and, Diomed,
Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head!

111

V,2,3265

Accept distracted thanks.

112

V,3,3318

Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
Which better fits a lion than a man.

113

V,3,3321

When many times the captive Grecian falls,
Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
You bid them rise, and live.

114

V,3,3325

Fool's play, by heaven, Hector.

115

V,3,3327

For the love of all the gods,
Let's leave the hermit pity with our mothers,
And when we have our armours buckled on,
The venom'd vengeance ride upon our swords,
Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth.

116

V,3,3333

Hector, then 'tis wars.

117

V,3,3335

Who should withhold me?
Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars
Beckoning with fiery truncheon my retire;
Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,
Their eyes o'ergalled with recourse of tears;
Not you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,
Opposed to hinder me, should stop my way,
But by my ruin.

118

V,3,3369

This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl
Makes all these bodements.

119

V,3,3379

Away! away!

120

V,3,3388

They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe,
I come to lose my arm, or win my sleeve.

121

V,3,3392

What now?

122

V,3,3394

Let me read.

123

V,3,3402

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

124

V,4,3429

Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river Styx,
I would swim after.

125

V,6,3520

O traitor Diomed! turn thy false face, thou traitor,
And pay thy life thou owest me for my horse!

126

V,6,3525

Come, both you cogging Greeks; have at you both!

127

V,6,3542

Ajax hath ta'en AEneas: shall it be?
No, by the flame of yonder glorious heaven,
He shall not carry him: I'll be ta'en too,
Or bring him off: fate, hear me what I say!
I reck not though I end my life to-day.

128

V,10,3635

Hector is slain.

129

V,10,3637

He's dead; and at the murderer's horse's tail,
In beastly sort, dragg'd through the shameful field.
Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed!
Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy!
I say, at once let your brief plagues be mercy,
And linger not our sure destructions on!

130

V,10,3644

You understand me not that tell me so:
I do not speak of flight, of fear, of death,
But dare all imminence that gods and men
Address their dangers in. Hector is gone:
Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba?
Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call'd,
Go in to Troy, and say there, Hector's dead:
There is a word will Priam turn to stone;
Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,
Cold statues of the youth, and, in a word,
Scare Troy out of itself. But, march away:
Hector is dead; there is no more to say.
Stay yet. You vile abominable tents,
Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains,
Let Titan rise as early as he dare,
I'll through and through you! and, thou great-sized coward,
No space of earth shall sunder our two hates:
I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still,
That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy's thoughts.
Strike a free march to Troy! with comfort go:
Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.
[Exeunt AENEAS and Trojans]
[As TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other]
side, PANDARUS]

131

V,10,3669

Hence, broker-lackey! ignomy and shame
Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name!

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