"Our fire-brand brother, Paris, burns us all. Cry, Trojans, cry! A Helen, and a woe: Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go."
Troilus flatly says that she is mad. Finally, Hector, though confessing that by every moral law Helen ought to be restored to her husband, thinks it better to hold on to her because she is a spur to valor, and their reputations depend upon preventing the Greeks from carrying their point. It is a discussion of shopkeepers who are aspiring to be actors and couch their speech in high-stepping hexameters.
Pandarus sings to Helen such a bit of frippery that we expect to see them both begin to hop from one foot to the other in the style of the burlesque, as they deliver the chorus of "Oh! oh! ha! ha! hey ho!"
There never was such deliberate absurdity as the fighting in this play. The original draught of it was certainly left untouched by Shakspeare, probably to keep the laugh sustained. It is all done in the vein of Bombastes. "Now, they are clapper-clawing one another," says Thersites; "I'll go look on." Diomedes enters, followed by Troilus, who bids him stand; for, if he took to the river Styx, Troilus would jump in after him. "Stand, forsooth," says Diomedes; "don't flatter yourself I was flying: no, my worthy Trojan, I was only extricating myself from the multitude to get at you,--so come on." They come on, and go off fighting. Pretty soon Diomedes enters with the horse of Troilus, under the pantomimic illusion that he has slain its master. He despatches the horse with a note to Cressida, his new mistress, late the mistress of the late Troilus. But Troilus was no more dead than Falstaff was embowelled; he enters in a fine fume, looking up his horse. There is Ajax bellowing to come to close quarters with him, and Diomedes in the rear bawling in imitation of Ajax, but ironically, because he thinks that Troilus fell by his hand. It is a very unexpected accommodation when Troilus appears, and the three go out fighting. Not a drop of blood is spilt as yet, for these are pasteboard warriors with wind for blood. But now comes Hector meeting Achilles, who goes into a perilous bluster as if the Trojan's last moments had arrived in his person. "Have at thee, Hector." "Very well," says Hector, "why don't you begin?" "Well, no, on the whole, I won't," replies Achilles; "my arms are out of practice, luckily for you; you may go unscathed this time." No sooner has Hector gone, than Achilles slips off to collect a party of his Myrmidons whom he engages to waylay Hector and overcome him by force of numbers. They find him resting with his helmet off, and they butcher him; Achilles crying, "Here he is, that's your man!" Then a retreat is sounded on both sides, as if for fear that some one would get hurt. The whole play breaks up abruptly, and nothing is finished. It seems like a tale told by an idiot, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." The sincere lover, Troilus, meeting Pandarus somewhere amid these punchinello combats, invokes ignominy and shame upon the pander's life, and invites posterity to use his name as a designation of a vile profession. Thus we return upon the track of the play's motive, and feel competent to enjoy, without hindrance, the humor and irony which saturate the scenes. Let us notice the character of Ajax, which is scratched all over by Shakspeare's pen.