Troilus and Cressida: Act 5, Scene 7
tragedy
Another part of the plains.
Achilles, shamed by Hector's mercy and furious over Patroclus, calls his Myrmidons together. He orders them to search out Hector and, when they find him, to surround him and attack all at once rather than in fair single combat. The order is to kill, not to fight.
Rehearsing this scene?
Pick your part to highlight your lines and step through the scene one speech at a time. You can hide your lines to learn them from the cue.
Or read it aloud and let the page follow you (voice follow, beta)Enter ACHILLES, with Myrmidons
ACHILLES
Come here about me, you my Myrmidons;
Mark what I say. Attend me where I wheel:
Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath:
And when I have the bloody Hector found,
Empale him with your weapons round about;
In fellest manner execute your aims.
Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings eye:
It is decreed Hector the great must die.
Exeunt
Enter MENELAUS and PARIS, fighting: then THERSITES
THERSITES
The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now,
bull! now, dog! 'Loo, Paris, 'loo! now my double-
henned sparrow! 'loo, Paris, 'loo! The bull has the
game: ware horns, ho!
Exeunt PARIS and MENELAUS
Enter MARGARELON
MARGARELON
Turn, slave, and fight.
THERSITES
What art thou?
MARGARELON
A bastard son of Priam's.
THERSITES
I am a bastard too; I love bastards: I am a bastard
begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard
in valour, in every thing illegitimate. One bear will
not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard?
Take heed, the quarrel's most ominous to us: if the
son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgment:
farewell, bastard.
Exit
MARGARELON
The devil take thee, coward!
Exit