Enter Priam, Hector, Troilus, Paris and Helenus. PRIAM
After so many hours, lives, speeches spent,
Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:
“Deliver Helen, and all damage else—
As honor, loss of time, travel, expense,
Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumed 5
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, 10
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 15
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To th’ 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. 20
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? 25 TROILUSFie, fie, my brother,
Weigh you the worth and honor 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, 30
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 35
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: 40
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 45
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 honor
Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their 50
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. 55 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 60
To make the service greater than the god;
And the will dotes that is attributive
To what infectiously itself affects
Without some image of th’ affected merit. TROILUS
I take today a wife, and my election 65
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, 70
The wife I choose? There can be no evasion
To blench from this and to stand firm by honor.
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant
When we have soiled them, nor the remainder
viands 75
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 80
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. 85
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— 90
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 95
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, 100
That in their country did them that disgrace
We fear to warrant in our native place. | In Troy, Priam and his sons talk about whether or not they should just give Helen back to the Greeks so they can end the war already. Hector thinks they should. He argues that every "soul" that's been killed during the war is just as valuable as Helen's, and Helen just isn't worth it. Helenus (not to be confused with Helen) agrees with Hector, but not Troilus. They had Paris's back seven years ago when he took Helen from the Greeks. Now they're going to say they should give Helen back? No way. Now we find out that Paris stole Helen from Menelaus not because he was in lust with her so much as to get revenge because the Greeks took his "old aunt" and held her captive. Brain Snack: Troilus's line about Helen being a pearl "whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships" is probably a shout-out to Christopher Marlowe's famous play, Doctor Faustus, in which a character asks "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?" |
CASSANDRA, within
Cry, Trojans, cry! PRIAM What noise? What shriek is this? TROILUS
’Tis our mad sister. I do know her voice. 105 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! 110 CASSANDRA
Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled elders,
Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,
Add to my clamors. Let us pay betimes
A moiety of that mass of moan to come.
Cry, Trojans, cry! Practice your eyes with tears. 115
Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilium 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. She exits. | Just as Troilus is explaining why the Trojans shouldn't give up the prize they stole from the Greeks—you know, Helen—his sister Cassandra comes running in ranting and raving about a prophesy. Cassandra's hair is a crazy mess. In Shakespeare, a woman's crazy hair = madness. Just ask Ophelia in Act 4, scene 5 of Hamlet. Cassandra warns her dad and brothers that if they keep Helen, Troy is totally going to burn. (Insert ominous music here.) |
Hector thinks maybe they should listen to their sis but Troilus blows her off and says Cassandra is crazy, obviously. After the guys dismiss their sis, they get back to arguing about Helen. When Paris defends his right to keep Helen, his dad points out that, even though he gets to enjoy Helen's "honey," everybody else has to suffer for it. Gross, dad. Paris argues that keeping Helen will erase "the soil of her fair rape," meaning—he knows it was wrong to kidnap Helen, but he thinks that if he can fend off the Greeks and keep her, it will bring him honor. Troilus agrees and says that Helen's a great excuse to keep fighting so they can all gain "honor" on the battlefield. Fine. Hector agrees to keep fighting to keep Helen, since it's now a matter of honor. | |