Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written around 1602. The play is set at Troy during the Trojan War where Troilus and Cressida begin a love affair. Cressida is forced to leave Troy to join her father in the Greek camp. Meanwhile the Greeks endeavour to lessen the pride of Achilles.It is called a history play in the Quarto edition (1609), and a tragedy in the First Folio (1623). Critics now often treat it as a "problem play."

Act I

 * He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding.
 * Pandarus, scene i


 * I have had my labour for my travail.
 * Pandarus, scene i


 * Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.
 * Cressida, scene ii, line 313


 * The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom, in all line of order.
 * Ulysses, scene iii


 * Take but degree away, untune that string, And hark, what discord follows! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy:
 * Ulysses, scene iii (~line 115)

the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores, And make a sop of all this solid globe.
 * There is seen The baby figure of the giant mass Of things to come at large.
 * Nestor, scene iii

Act II

 * Modest doubt is call’d The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches To the bottom of the worst.
 * Hector, scene ii


 * The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance.
 * Thersites, scene iii

Act III

 * They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one.
 * Cressida, scene ii


 * Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for Oblivion, A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes.
 * Ulysses, scene iii


 * Perséverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: to have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery.
 * Ulysses, scene iii


 * Time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand; And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps-in the comer: the welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing.
 * Ulysses, scene iii


 * One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
 * Ulysses, scene iii


 * 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’erdusted.
 * Ulysses, scene iii


 * And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane, Be shook to airy air.
 * Patroclus, scene iii


 * A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin.
 * Thersites, scene ix

Act IV

 * There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body.
 * Ulysses, scene v


 * His heart and hand both open and both free; For what he has he gives, what thinks, he shows; Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty.
 * Ulysses, scene v


 * The end crowns all; And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it.
 * Hector, scene v