ALEXANDER.
Up to the eastern tower,
Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is as a virtue fix’d, today was mov’d.
He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harness’d light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw
In Hector’s wrath.
CRESSIDA.
What was his cause of anger?
ALEXANDER.
The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks
A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him Ajax.
CRESSIDA.
Good; and what of him?
ALEXANDER.
They say he is a very man per se
And stands alone.
CRESSIDA.
So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.
ALEXANDER.
This man, lady, hath robb’d many beasts of their particular additions: he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant—a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crush’d into folly, his folly sauced with discretion. There is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it; he is melancholy without cause and merry against the hair; he hath the joints of everything; but everything so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.
CRESSIDA.
But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry?
ALEXANDER.
They say he yesterday cop’d Hector in the battle and struck him down, the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.
Enter Pandarus.