Enter Cassandra, raving, with her hair about her ears.[1366]
Cas. Cry, Trojans, cry! lend me ten thousand eyes,[1367]
And I will fill them with prophetic tears.
Hect. Peace, sister, peace!
Cas. Virgins and boys, mid age and wrinkled old,[1368]
Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,[1369] 105
Add to my clamours! let us pay betimes[1370]
A moiety of that mass of moan to come.
Cry, Trojans, cry! practise your eyes with tears!
Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;
Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all. 110
Cry, Trojans, cry! a Helen and a woe:
Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go. [Exit.
Hect. Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains[1371]
Of divination in our sister work
Some touches of remorse? or is your blood 115
So madly hot that no discourse of reason,
Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,
Can qualify the same?
Tro. Why, brother Hector,
We may not think the justness of each act[1372]
Such and no other than event doth form it; 120
Nor once deject the courage of our minds,
Because Cassandra's mad: her brain-sick raptures
Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel
Which hath our several honours all engaged
To make it gracious. For my private part, 125
I am no more touch'd than all Priam's sons:[1373]
And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us
Such things as might offend the weakest spleen
To fight for and maintain!
Par. Else might the world convince of levity[1374] 130
As well my undertakings as your counsels:[1375]
But I attest the gods, your full consent[1376]
Gave wings to my propension and cut off
All fears attending on so dire a project.
For what, alas, can these my single arms? 135
What propugnation is in one man's valour,
To stand the push and enmity of those
This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest,
Were I alone to pass the difficulties[1377]
And had as ample power as I have will, 140
Paris should ne'er retract what he hath done,
Nor faint in the pursuit.
Pri. Paris, you speak
Like one besotted on your sweet delights:
You have the honey still, but these the gall;
So to be valiant is no praise at all. 145
Par. Sir, I propose not merely to myself
The pleasures such a beauty brings with it;
But I would have the soil of her fair rape
Wiped off, in honourable keeping her.
What treason were it to the ransack'd queen, 150
Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,
Now to deliver her possession up
On terms of base compulsion! Can it be
That so degenerate a strain as this
Should once set footing in your generous bosoms?[1378] 155
There's not the meanest spirit on our party,[1379]
Without a heart to dare or sword to draw
When Helen is defended, nor none so noble,[1380]
Whose life were ill bestow'd or death unfamed
Where Helen is the subject: then, I say, 160
Well may we fight for her, whom, we know well,
The world's large spaces cannot parallel.
Hect. Paris and Troilus, you have both said well;
And on the cause and question now in hand[1381]
Have glozed, but superficially; not much[1382] 165
Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought[1383]
Unfit to hear moral philosophy.
The reasons you allege do more conduce
To the hot passion of distemper'd blood
Than to make up a free determination 170
'Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge
Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice[1384]
Of any true decision. Nature craves
All dues be render'd to their owners: now,
What nearer debt in all humanity 175
Than wife is to the husband? If this law
Of nature be corrupted through affection,
And that great minds, of partial indulgence
To their benumbed wills, resist the same,
There is a law in each well-order'd nation[1385] 180
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.[1386]
If Helen then be wife to Sparta's king,
As it is known she is, these moral laws
Of nature and of nations speak aloud[1387] 185
To have her back return'd: thus to persist
In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,
But makes it much more heavy. Hector's opinion
Is this in way of truth: yet, ne'ertheless,
My spritely brethren, I propend to you 190
In resolution to keep Helen still;
For 'tis a cause that hath no mean dependance
Upon our joint and several dignities.