Open Source Shakespeare

Speeches (Lines) for Agamemnon
in "Troilus and Cressida"

Total: 52

# Act, Scene, Line
(Click to see in context)
Speech text

1

I,3,451

Princes,
What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?
The ample proposition that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below
Fails in the promised largeness: cheques and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd,
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infect the sound pine and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us
That we come short of our suppose so far
That after seven years' siege yet Troy walls stand;
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought
That gave't surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works,
And call them shames? which are indeed nought else
But the protractive trials of great Jove
To find persistive constancy in men:
The fineness of which metal is not found
In fortune's love; for then the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft seem all affined and kin:
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass or matter, by itself
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.

2

I,3,523

Speak, prince of Ithaca; and be't of less expect
That matter needless, of importless burden,
Divide thy lips, than we are confident,
When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws,
We shall hear music, wit and oracle.

3

I,3,593

The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses,
What is the remedy?

4

I,3,667

What trumpet? look, Menelaus.

5

I,3,670

What would you 'fore our tent?

6

I,3,672

Even this.

7

I,3,675

With surety stronger than Achilles' arm
'Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice
Call Agamemnon head and general.

8

I,3,681

How!

9

I,3,689

This Trojan scorns us; or the men of Troy
Are ceremonious courtiers.

10

I,3,703

Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself AEneas?

11

I,3,705

What's your affair I pray you?

12

I,3,707

He hears naught privately that comes from Troy.

13

I,3,712

Speak frankly as the wind;
It is not Agamemnon's sleeping hour:
That thou shalt know. Trojan, he is awake,
He tells thee so himself.

14

I,3,745

This shall be told our lovers, Lord AEneas;
If none of them have soul in such a kind,
We left them all at home: but we are soldiers;
And may that soldier a mere recreant prove,
That means not, hath not, or is not in love!
If then one is, or hath, or means to be,
That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he.

15

I,3,765

Fair Lord AEneas, let me touch your hand;
To our pavilion shall I lead you, sir.
Achilles shall have word of this intent;
So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent:
Yourself shall feast with us before you go
And find the welcome of a noble foe.

16

II,3,1291

Where is Achilles?

17

II,3,1293

Let it be known to him that we are here.
He shent our messengers; and we lay by
Our appertainments, visiting of him:
Let him be told so; lest perchance he think
We dare not move the question of our place,
Or know not what we are.

18

II,3,1330

Hear you, Patroclus:
We are too well acquainted with these answers:
But his evasion, wing'd thus swift with scorn,
Cannot outfly our apprehensions.
Much attribute he hath, and much the reason
Why we ascribe it to him; yet all his virtues,
Not virtuously on his own part beheld,
Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss,
Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish,
Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him,
We come to speak with him; and you shall not sin,
If you do say we think him over-proud
And under-honest, in self-assumption greater
Than in the note of judgment; and worthier
than himself
Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on,
Disguise the holy strength of their command,
And underwrite in an observing kind
His humorous predominance; yea, watch
His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if
The passage and whole carriage of this action
Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and add,
That if he overhold his price so much,
We'll none of him; but let him, like an engine
Not portable, lie under this report:
'Bring action hither, this cannot go to war:
A stirring dwarf we do allowance give
Before a sleeping giant.' Tell him so.

19

II,3,1360

In second voice we'll not be satisfied;
We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you.

20

II,3,1364

No more than what he thinks he is.

21

II,3,1367

No question.

22

II,3,1369

No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as
wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether
more tractable.

23

II,3,1374

Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the
fairer. He that is proud eats up himself: pride is
his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle;
and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours
the deed in the praise.

24

II,3,1384

What's his excuse?

25

II,3,1389

Why will he not upon our fair request
Untent his person and share the air with us?

26

II,3,1427

O, no, you shall not go.

27

II,3,1436

He will be the physician that should be the patient.

28

II,3,1489

Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep:
Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.

29

III,3,1882

What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? make demand.

30

III,3,1896

Let Diomedes bear him,
And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have
What he requests of us. Good Diomed,
Furnish you fairly for this interchange:
Withal bring word if Hector will to-morrow
Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready.

31

III,3,1918

We'll execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along:
So do each lord, and either greet him not,
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.

32

III,3,1925

What says Achilles? would he aught with us?

33

III,3,1929

The better.

34

IV,5,2595

Here art thou in appointment fresh and fair,
Anticipating time with starting courage.
Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy,
Thou dreadful Ajax; that the appalled air
May pierce the head of the great combatant
And hale him hither.

35

IV,5,2610

Is not yond Diomed, with Calchas' daughter?

36

IV,5,2615

Is this the Lady Cressid?

37

IV,5,2617

Most dearly welcome to the Greeks, sweet lady.

38

IV,5,2672

Yonder comes the troop.
[Enter HECTOR, armed; AENEAS, TROILUS, and other]
Trojans, with Attendants]

39

IV,5,2682

Which way would Hector have it?

40

IV,5,2702

Here is Sir Diomed. Go, gentle knight,
Stand by our Ajax: as you and Lord AEneas
Consent upon the order of their fight,
So be it; either to the uttermost,
Or else a breath: the combatants being kin
Half stints their strife before their strokes begin.

41

IV,5,2710

What Trojan is that same that looks so heavy?

42

IV,5,2729

They are in action.

43

IV,5,2733

His blows are well disposed: there, Ajax!

44

IV,5,2785

Worthy of arms! as welcome as to one
That would be rid of such an enemy;
But that's no welcome: understand more clear,
What's past and what's to come is strew'd with husks
And formless ruin of oblivion;
But in this extant moment, faith and troth,
Strain'd purely from all hollow bias-drawing,
Bids thee, with most divine integrity,
From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.

45

IV,5,2795

[To TROILUS] My well-famed lord of Troy, no
less to you.

46

IV,5,2903

First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent;
There in the full convive we: afterwards,
As Hector's leisure and your bounties shall
Concur together, severally entreat him.
Beat loud the tabourines, let the trumpets blow,
That this great soldier may his welcome know.

47

V,1,3001

We go wrong, we go wrong.

48

V,1,3009

So now, fair prince of Troy, I bid good night.
Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.

49

V,1,3018

Good night.

50

V,5,3461

Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamas
Hath beat down Menon: bastard Margarelon
Hath Doreus prisoner,
And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam,
Upon the pashed corses of the kings
Epistrophus and Cedius: Polyxenes is slain,
Amphimachus and Thoas deadly hurt,
Patroclus ta'en or slain, and Palamedes
Sore hurt and bruised: the dreadful Sagittary
Appals our numbers: haste we, Diomed,
To reinforcement, or we perish all.

51

V,9,3619

Hark! hark! what shout is that?

52

V,9,3626

March patiently along: let one be sent
To pray Achilles see us at our tent.
If in his death the gods have us befriended,
Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended.