TROILUS & CRESSIDA. William Shakespeare

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       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 reasons,

       Because your speech hath none that tells 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 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.

       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—I

       And the will dotes that is attributive

       To what infectiously itself affects,

       Without some image of th’ 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 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 with full consent benied his sails;

       The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce,

       And did him service. He touch’d the ports desir’d;

       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

       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 worthy 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 never fortune did—

       Beggar the estimation which you priz’d

       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, Troyans, cry.

       PRIAM.

       What noise, what shriek is this?

       TROILUS.

       ‘Tis our mad sister; I do know her voice.

       CASSANDRA.

       [Within.]

       Cry, Troyans.

       HECTOR.

       It is Cassandra.

       [Enter CASSANDRA, raving.]

       CASSANDRA.

       Cry, Troyans, cry. Lend me ten thousand eyes,

       And I will fill them with prophetic tears.

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