Troilus And Cressida Monologue
| Troilus And Cressida Monologue by William Shakespeare | |
| Character: | Ulysses |
| Gender: | Male |
| Age (range): | ? |
| Style: | Drama/Comedy |
| Length: | 4 minutes |
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- ULYSSES: Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
- Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
- A great-sized monster of ingratitudes.
- Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured
- As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
- As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,
- Keeps honor bright; to have done, is to hang
- Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
- In monumental mock'ry. Take the instant way;
- For honor travels in a strait so narrow
- Where one but goes abreast. Keep, then, the path;
- For emulation hath a thousand sons
- That one by one pursue. If you give way,
- Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
- Like to an ent'red tide they all rush by
- And leave you hindmost;
- [Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,
- Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
- O'errun and trampled on.] Then what they do in present,
- Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours;
- For time is like fashionable host,
- That slightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand,
- And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly,
- Grasps in the comer. The welcome ever smiles,
- And farewell goes out sighing. Let not virtue seek
- Remuneration for the thing it was. For beauty, wit,
- High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,
- Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
- To envious and calumniating time.
- One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,
- That all with one consent praise new-born gawds,
- Though they are made and moulded of things past,
- And give to dust that is a little gilt
- More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.
- The present eye praises the present object.
- Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
- That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
- Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
- That what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
- And still it might, and yet it may again,
- If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive
- And case thy reputation in thy tent;
- Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
- Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves
- And drave great Mars to faction.
