Priam

After so many hours, lives, speeches spent,

Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:

“Deliver Helen, and all damage else —

As honour, loss of time, travail, expense,

Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumed

In hot digestion of this cormorant war —

Shall be struck off.” Hector, what say you to't?

Hector

Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I

As far as toucheth my particular,

Yet, dread Priam,

There is no lady of more softer bowels,

More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,

More ready to cry out “Who knows what follows?”

Than Hector is: the wound of peace is surety,

Surety secure; but modest doubt is called

The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches

To the bottom of the worst. Let Helen go:

Since the first sword was drawn about this question,

Every tithe soul, 'mongst many thousand dismes,

Hath been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours:

If we have lost so many tenths of ours,

To guard a thing not ours nor worth to us,

Had it our name, the value of one ten,

What merit's in that reason which denies

The yielding of her up?

Troilus

Fie, fie, my brother!

Weigh you the worth and honour of a king

So great as our dread father's 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!

Helenus

No marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons,

You are so empty of them. Should not our father

Bear the great sway of his affairs with reason,

Because your speech hath none that tell him so?

Troilus

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 employed 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 disorbed? 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 crammed reason: reason and respect

Make livers pale and lustihood deject.

Hector

Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost

The keeping.

Troilus

What's aught, but as 'tis valued?

Hector

But value dwells not in particular will;

It holds his estimate and dignity

As well wherein 'tis precious of itself

As in the prizer: 'tis mad idolatry

To make the service greater than the god;

And the will dotes that is attributive

To what infectiously itself affects,

Without some image of the affected merit.

Troilus

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 judgement: 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 soiled 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 with full consent bellied his sails;

The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce

And did him service: he touched 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 pale the morning.

Why keep we her? the Grecians keep our aunt:

Is she worth keeping? why, she is a pearl,

Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships,

And turned crowned 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 worthy prize —

As you must needs, for you all clapped your hands,

And cried “Inestimable!” — why do you now

The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,

And do a deed that never fortune 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!

Cassandra

Within Cry, Trojans, cry!

Priam

What noise? what shriek is this?

Troilus

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

Cassandra

Within Cry, Trojans!

Hector

It is Cassandra. Enter CASSANDRA, raving.

Cassandra

Cry, Trojans, cry! lend me ten thousand eyes,

And I will fill them with prophetic tears.

Hector

Peace, sister, peace!

Cassandra

Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld,

Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,

Add to my clamours! let us pay betimes

A moiety of that mass of moan to come.

Cry, Trojans, cry! practise your eyes with tears!

Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;

Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.

Cry, Trojans, cry! a Helen and a woe:

Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go. Exit.

Hector

Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains

Of divination in our sister work

Some touches of remorse? or is your blood

So madly hot that no discourse of reason,

Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,

Can qualify the same?

Troilus

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 brainsick 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 touched 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!

Paris

Else might the world convince of levity

As well my undertakings as your counsels:

But I attest the gods, your full consent

Gave wings to my propension and cut off

All fears attending on so dire a project.

For what, alas, can these my single arms?

What propugnation is in one man's valour,

To stand the push and enmity of those

This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest,

Were I alone to pass the difficulties

And had as ample power as I have will,

Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done,

Nor faint in the pursuit.

Priam

Paris, you speak

Like one besotted on your sweet delights:

You have the honey still, but these the gall;

So to be valiant is no praise at all.

Paris

Sir, I propose not merely to myself

The pleasures such a beauty brings with it;

But I would have the soil of her fair rape

Wiped off, in honourable keeping her.

What treason were it to the ransacked queen,

Disgrace to your great worths and shame to me,

Now to deliver her possession up

On terms of base compulsion! Can it be

That so degenerate a strain as this

Should once set footing in your generous bosoms?

There's not the meanest spirit on our party

Without a heart to dare or sword to draw

When Helen is defended, nor none so noble

Whose life were ill bestowed or death unfamed

Where Helen is the subject: then, I say,

Well may we fight for her whom, we know well,

The world's large spaces cannot parallel.

Hector

Paris and Troilus, you have both said well,

And on the cause and question now in hand

Have glozed, but superficially: not much

Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought

Unfit to hear moral philosophy:

The reasons you allege do more conduce

To the hot passion of distempered blood

Than to make up a free determination

'Twixt right and wrong, for pleasure and revenge

Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice

Of any true decision. Nature craves

All dues be rendered to their owners: now,

What nearer debt in all humanity

Than wife is to the husband? If this law

Of nature be corrupted through affection,

And that great minds, of partial indulgence

To their benumbed wills, resist the same,

There is a law in each well-ordered nation

To curb those raging appetites that are

Most disobedient and refractory.

If Helen then be wife to Sparta's king,

As it is known she is, these moral laws

Of nature and of nations speak aloud

To have her back returned: thus to persist

In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,

But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion

Is this in way of truth; yet ne'er the less,

My sprightly brethren, I propend to you

In resolution to keep Helen still,

For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependence

Upon our joint and several dignities.

Troilus

Why, there you touched 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.

Hector

I am yours,

You valiant offspring of great Priamus.

I have a roisting challenge sent amongst

The dull and factious nobles of the Greeks

Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits:

I was advertised their great general slept,

Whilst emulation in the army crept:

This, I presume, will wake him. Exeunt.