Troilus and Cressida
Act V, Scene 4
The plains between Troy and the Grecian camp.
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Alarum. Enter Thersites. Excursions.
Thersites
1 - 16
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Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I’ll go look on.
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That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that
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same scurvy doting foolish young knave’s sleeve of Troy
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there in his helm. I would fain see them meet, that that
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same young Troyan ass, that loves the whore there, might
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send that Greekish whoremasterly villain with the sleeve
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back to the dissembling luxurious drab, of a sleeveless
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arrant. A’ th’ t’ other side, the policy of those crafty
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swearing rascals, that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese,
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Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Ulysses, is not prov’d worth
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a blackberry. They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur,
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Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles; and now
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is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not
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arm today; whereupon the Grecians began to proclaim
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barbarism, and policy grows into an ill opinion.
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Enter Diomedes, and Troilus following.
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Soft, here comes sleeve and t’ other.
Troilus
17 - 18
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Fly not, for shouldst thou take the river Styx,
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I would swim after.
Diomedes
19 - 22
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Thou dost miscall retire.
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I do not fly, but advantageous care
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Withdrew me from the odds of multitude.
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Have at thee!
Thersites
23 - 24
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Hold thy whore, Grecian!—now for thy whore, Troyan!—now the
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sleeve, now the sleeve!
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Exeunt Troilus and Diomedes fighting.
Hector
25 - 26
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What art thou, Greek? Art thou for Hector’s match?
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Art thou of blood and honor?
Thersites
27 - 28
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No, no, I am a rascal, a scurvy railing knave, a very filthy
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rogue.
Hector
29
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I do believe thee, live.
Thersites
30 - 34
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God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me, but a plague break
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thy neck—for frighting me! What’s become of the wenching
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rogues? I think they have swallow’d one another. I would
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laugh at that miracle—yet in a sort lechery eats itself.
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I’ll seek them.
