AJAX.
Farewell. Who shall answer him?
ACHILLES.
I know not; ’tis put to lott’ry, otherwise,
He knew his man.
AJAX.
O, meaning you? I will go learn more of it.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. Troy. Priam’s palace.
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 honour, loss of time, travail, expense,
Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consum’d
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,
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 call’d
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.
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?
TROILUS.
Fie, fie, my brother!
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 of reasons,
You are so empty of them. Should not our father
Bear the great sway of his affairs with reason,
Because your speech hath none that tells him so?