Troilus and Cressida

SCENE VII. Another part of the plain.

Enter Achilles with Myrmidons.

ACHILLES.
Come here about me, you my Myrmidons;
Mark what I say. Attend me where I wheel;
Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath;
And when I have the bloody Hector found,
Empale him with your weapons round about;
In fellest manner execute your arms.
Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings eye.
It is decreed Hector the great must die.

[Exeunt.]

Enter Menelaus and Paris, fighting; then Thersites.

THERSITES.
The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull! Now, dog! ’Loo, Paris, ’loo! now my double-hen’d Spartan! ’loo, Paris, ’loo! The bull has the game. ’Ware horns, ho!

[Exeunt Paris and Menelaus.]

Enter Margarelon.

MARGARELON.
Turn, slave, and fight.

THERSITES.
What art thou?

MARGARELON.
A bastard son of Priam’s.

THERSITES.
I am a bastard too; I love bastards. I am a bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in everything illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard? Take heed, the quarrel’s most ominous to us: if the son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgement. Farewell, bastard.

[Exit.]

MARGARELON.
The devil take thee, coward!

[Exit.]