Title: Trolius And Cressida
Book: Act V.
Author: Shakespeare, William
Date: 1602

Scene IV. Plains between Troy and the Grocian Camp.

Alarums. Excursions. Enter Thersites,

Ther. Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look on. That
dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy doting foolish
young knave's sleeve of Troy there in his helm: I would fain see them meet;
that that same young Trojan asa, that loves the whore there, might send that
Greekish whore-masterly villain, with the sleeve, back to the dissembling
luxurious drab, of a sleeveless errand. O' the other side, the policy of those
crafty swearing rascals, that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, and
that same dog-fox, Ulysses, is not proved worth a blackberry: they set me up,
in policy, that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind,
Achilles; and now is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur. Achilles, and will not
arm to-day; whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy
grows into an ill opinion. Soft! here comes sleeve, and t' other.

Enter Diomedes, Troilus following.

Tro. Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river Styx,
I would swim after.

Dio. Thou dost miscall retire:
I do not fly, but advantageous care
Withdrew me from the odds of multitude.
Have at thee!

Ther, Hold thy whore, Grecian! now for thy whore, Trojan! now the sleeve!
now the sleeve!
[Exeunt Troilus and Diomedes, fighting.

Enter Hector.

Hect. What art thou, Greek? art thou for Hector's match?
Art thou of blood and honour?

Ther. No, no; I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave; a very filthy rogue.

Hect. I do believe thee: live.
[Exit.

Ther. God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague break thy neck
for frighting me! What's become of the wenching rogues? I think they have
swallowed one another: I would laugh at that miracle; yet, in a sort, lechery
eats itself. I'll seek them.
[Exit.