CJTranslations - Troilus and Cressida

QUOTES BY TOPIC

A fusty nut with no kernel

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.1
SPEAKER: Thersites
CONTEXT:
THERSITES
I serve here voluntarily.
ACHILLES
Your last service was sufferance, ’twas not
voluntary: no man is beaten voluntary: Ajax was
here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.
THERSITES
E’en so; a great deal of your wit, too, lies in your
sinews, or else there be liars. Hector have a great
catch, if he knock out either of your brains: a’
were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.

DUTCH:
Hector zal een mooie vangst doen, als hij aan een van u de hersens inslaat; even goed alsof hij eene boze noot, een zonder kern, kraakte.

MORE:
Sufferance=Unwillingly
Impress=Conscription (pressed to serve in the army); beating
Were as good=Could just as well
Compleat:
Sufferance=Verdraagzaamheid, toegeevendheid

Topics: intellect, insult

A good quarrel to draw emulous factions and bleed to death upon

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.3
SPEAKER: Thersites
CONTEXT:
THERSITES
Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles;
Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon;
Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool, and
Patroclus is a fool positive.
PATROCLUS
Why am I a fool?
THERSITES
Make that demand of the prover. It suffices me thou
art. Look you, who comes here?
ACHILLES
Patroclus, I’ll speak with nobody.
Come in with me, Thersites.
THERSITES
Here is such patchery, such juggling and such
knavery! all the argument is a cuckold and a
whore; a good quarrel to draw emulous factions
and bleed to death upon. Now, the dry serpigo on
the subject! and war and lechery confound all!

DUTCH:
Al die beweging is om een
horendrager en een lichtekooi; een fraaie twist, om partijen
tot naijver op te hitsen en er voor dood te bloeden!
Nu, dat melaatschheid de oorzaak sla, en krijg en ontucht
hen allen verderven!

MORE:
Positive=Absolute
Prover=Other editions have the word Creator
Patchery=Incompetence
Juggling=Deception
Draw=Attract
Emulous=Envious, rival
Serpigo=Ringworm, skin disease
Confound=Ruin, destroy
Compleat:
Positive=(absolute or certain) Volstrekt, zeker
Patcher=Een lapper, flikker
Juggling=Guicheling; Moffeling. Jugglingly=Bedriegelyk
Emulous=Naayverig, nydig
Confound=Verwarren, verstooren, te schande maaken, verbysteren

Topics: leadership, status, authority, manipulation

A stirring dwarf we do allowance give before a sleeping giant

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.3
SPEAKER: Agamemnon
CONTEXT:
AGAMEMNON
Hear you, Patroclus:
We are too well acquainted with these answers:
But his evasion, winged thus swift with scorn,
Cannot outfly our apprehensions.
Much attribute he hath, and much the reason
Why we ascribe it to him; yet all his virtues,
Not virtuously on his own part beheld,
Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss,
Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish,
Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him,
We come to speak with him; and you shall not sin,
If you do say we think him over-proud
And under-honest, in self-assumption greater
Than in the note of judgement; and worthier than himself
Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on,
Disguise the holy strength of their command,
And underwrite in an observing kind
His humorous predominance; yea, watch
His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if
The passage and whole carriage of this action
Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and add,
That if he overhold his price so much,
We’ll none of him; but let him, like an engine
Not portable, lie under this report:
‘Bring action hither, this cannot go to war:
A stirring dwarf we do allowance give
Before a sleeping giant.’ Tell him so.

DUTCH:
Een dwerg, die goed zich roert, is meer ons waard
Dan eenig reus, die slaapt; ga, meld hem dit.

MORE:
Apprehensions=Comprehension, grasp
Attribute=Reputation
Unwholesome=Unhealthy
Like=Likely
Self-assumption=Self-regard, arrogance
Note=Observation
Tend=Attend, wait on
Savage=Uncivilised
Strangeness=Aloofness
Underwrite=Subscribe to
Observing=Compliant
Predominance=Superior power, influence
Humorous=Capricious
Pettish=Petulant
Lunes=Fits of madness (relating to the changing moons)
Action=Military campaign
Overhold=Overestimate
Stirring=Active
Compleat:
Apprehension=Bevatting, begryping; jaloezy, achterdogt
Attribute=Eigenschap
Unwholesom=Ongezond
Assumption=Aanmaatiging, aanneeming
To note=Merken, aanteykenen, aanmerken
To attend=Opwachten, verzellen
Savage=Woest, wild, wreed, ruuw
Strangeness=Vreemdheid
To underwrite=Onderschryven
Observant=Gedienstig, opmerkend, waarneemend, eerbiedig
Predominancy=Overheersching
Humoursom (humerous)=Eigenzinnig, koppig, styfhoofdig, eenzinnig
Pettish=Kribbig, korzel
Action=Een daad, handeling, rechtzaak, gevecht
Stirring=Beweeging, verroering

Topics: reputation, merit, pride, honesty, vanity

And sometimes we are devils to ourselves, when we will tempt the frailty of our powers

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.5
SPEAKER: Troilus
CONTEXT:
TROILUS
Die I a villain, then!
In this I do not call your faith in question
So mainly as my merit: I cannot sing,
Nor heel the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk,
Nor play at subtle games; fair virtues all,
To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant:
But I can tell that in each grace of these
There lurks a still and dumb-discoursive devil
That tempts most cunningly: but be not tempted.
CRESSIDA
Do you think I will?
TROILUS
No.
But something may be done that we will not:
And sometimes we are devils to ourselves,
When we will tempt the frailty of our powers,
Presuming on their changeful potency.

DUTCH:
Soms zijn wij duivels voor onszelf, verzoeken
De zwakheid onzes geestes, door te roekloos
Vertrouwen op zijn wankelbare kracht.

MORE:
So mainly as=As much as
Merit=Good work
Heel=Dance
Lavolt=The volta or lavolt was a very physical dance
Pregnant=Ready
Dumb-discoursive=Silently communicating
Presuming on=Confident of, relying on
Changeful=Unreliable
Potency=Power
Compleat:
Mainly=Voornaamelyk
Merit=Verdienste
Volta=Een sprong van een paard
Pregnant=Klaar, krachtig
Discoursive=Redeneerend
Potency=Macht, gezach, vermoogen

Topics: loyalty, merit, good and bad, adversity, temptation

And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age must be the scene of mirth

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns
The sinew and the forehand of our host,
Having his ear full of his airy fame,
Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent
Lies mocking our designs: with him Patroclus
Upon a lazy bed the livelong day
Breaks scurril jests;
And with ridiculous and awkward action,
Which, slanderer, he imitation calls,
He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,
Thy topless deputation he puts on,
And, like a strutting player, whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
‘Twixt his stretched footing and the scaffoldage,—
Such to-be-pitied and o’er-wrested seeming
He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks,
‘Tis like a chime a-mending; with terms unsquared,
Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropped
Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff
The large Achilles, on his pressed bed lolling,
From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;
Cries ‘Excellent! ’tis Agamemnon just.
Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,
As he being drest to some oration.’
That’s done, as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels, as like as Vulcan and his wife:
Yet god Achilles still cries ‘Excellent!
‘Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus,
Arming to answer in a night alarm.’
And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age
Must be the scene of mirth; to cough and spit,
And, with a palsy-fumbling on his gorget,
Shake in and out the rivet: and at this sport
Sir Valour dies; cries ‘O, enough, Patroclus;
Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all
In pleasure of my spleen.’ And in this fashion,
All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,
Severals and generals of grace exact,
Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,
Excitements to the field, or speech for truce,
Success or loss, what is or is not, serves
As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.

DUTCH:
En dan, dan worden ouderdoms-gebreken
Het voorwerp van hun spot; hij hoest en spuwt,
En schuift met jichtig treuz’len aan den halskraag
Stift uit stift in;

MORE:
Opinion=Consensus
Sinew=Muscle
Airy=Insubstantial
Dainty=Picky
Scurrile=Scurillous
Pageant=Mimic
Topless=Without a leader
Conceit=conception, idea, image in the mind
Wooden=Plodding
Stretched footing=Long strides
Scaffoldage=Stage
Unsquared=Unbecoming
Fusty=Stale
Just=Precisely
Palsy=Trembling
Gorget=Armour to protect the throat
Paradox=Absurdity
Compleat:
Opinon=Goeddunken, meening, gevoelen, waan
Sinew=Zenuw, zeen
Airy=Luchtig, luchthartig
Dainty=Lekker, raar, uytgeleezen
Scurrilous=Guytachtig, fieltachtig
Pageant=Een Triomfhoog, triomfwagen; schijn
Conceit=Waan, bevatting, opvatting, meening
Squared=Gepast
Fusty=Muffig, muf, vermuft
Palsy=Beroerdheid, geraaktheid, popelsy
Gorget=Een Kroplap, borstlap; Ringkraag
Paradox=Een wonderspreuk, een vreemde reden die tegen ‘t gemeen gevoelen schynt aan te loopen

Topics: negligence, pride, age/experience, respect

And what hath mass or matter, by itself lies rich in virtue and unmingled

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: Agamemnon
CONTEXT:
AGAMEMNON
Princes,
What grief hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?
The ample proposition that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below
Fails in the promised largeness: checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest reared,
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infect the sound pine and divert his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us
That we come short of our suppose so far
That after seven years’ siege yet Troy walls stand;
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought
That gave’t surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abashed behold our works,
And call them shames? which are indeed nought else
But the protractive trials of great Jove
To find persistive constancy in men:
The fineness of which metal is not found
In fortune’s love; for then the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft seem all affined and kin:
But, in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass or matter, by itself
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.

DUTCH:
Doch als zij ‘t voorhoofd fronst, en stormt, en loeit,
Komt zifting, met een groote wan, en doet
Met krachtig schudden ‘t lichte kaf vervliegen;
Maar wat gewicht en echt gehalte heeft,
Blijft liggen, rijk in waarde en onvermengd.

MORE:
Design=A work in hand, enterprise, cause
Checks=Obstacles
Conflux=Confluence
Tortive=Twisted
Errant=Wandering
Suppose=Intention, expectation
Bias=Awry
Answering=Fulfilling
Unbodied=Abstract
Surmised=Imaginary
Shame=Disgrace
Protractive=Protracting
Persistive=Persistent
Metal=Mettle, spirit
Artist=Scholar
Unmingled=Pure
Compleat:
Design=Opzet, voorneemen, oogmerk, aanslag, toeleg, ontwerp
Check=Berispen, beteugelen, intoomen, verwyten
Conflux=’t Zamenvloed, vermenging van wateren
Tortile=Geboogen, gerekt, verdraaid, gekronkeld
Errant=Doolende, omzwervende
Suppose=Vermoeden, denken, onderstellen
To run bias=Schuin loopen
Surmise=Een vermoeden, waan
Shame (reproach, ignominy)=Schande
To protract=Uytstellen, verlengen
Persisting=Aanhoudende, byblyvende
Full of mettle=Vol vuurs, moedig
Unmingled=Ongemengd

Topics: plans/intentions, advice, failure, adversity, disappointment

And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts to every ticklish readert

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.6
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
Fie, fie upon her!
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.
O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue,
That give accosting welcome ere it comes,
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts
To every ticklish reader! set them down
For sluttish spoils of opportunity
And daughters of the game.

DUTCH:
0, die aanhaal’gen, die, zoo glad van tong,
Een groet, eer die geuit werd, welkom heeten
En ‘t boek van haar gedachten openslaan
Voor elk, wien ‘t lust te lezen! Reken haar
Gelegenheids onkuische en lichte buit
En dochters van den boozen lust.

MORE:
Language=Expression of thought
Motive=Instrument, limb
Glib=Slippery
Unclasp=Reveal
Ticklish=Willing
Set down=Classify
Compleat:
Motive faculty=Het bewegende vermogen
Glib=Glad, glibberig; To run glib=Vloeijend spreken
His tongue runs very glib=Zyn tong is gansch niet belemmerd; de tong is hem wel gehangen
To unclasp a boek=De slooten van een boek opdoen
Ticklish=Kittelachtig; ligt geraakt

Topics: intellect, communication

Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after meat!

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.2
SPEAKER: Pandarus
CONTEXT:
PANDARUS
Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran!
porridge after meat! I could live and die i’ the
eyes of Troilus. Ne’er look, ne’er look: the eagles
are gone: crows and daws, crows and daws! I had
rather be such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and
all Greece.
CRESSIDA
There is among the Greeks Achilles, a better man than
Troilus.
PANDARUS
Achilles! a drayman, a porter, a very camel.
CRESSIDA
Well, well.
PANDARUS
‘Well, well!’ why, have you any discretion? have
you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not
birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood,
learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality,
and such like, the spice and salt that season a man?
CRESSIDA
Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked with no date
in the pie, for then the man’s date’s out.
PANDARUS
You are such a woman! one knows not at what ward you
lie.

DUTCH:
Ezels, dwazen, uilskuikens! kaf en zemelen, kaf en
zemelen! soep na den maaltijd!

MORE:
Chaff and bran=Discarded after winnowing
Daws=Jackdaws (representing foolishness)
Camel=Seen as stupid, obstinate
Birth=Lineage
Discourse=Eloquence
Gentleness=Gentility, nobility
Minced=Emasculated
Compleat:
Chaff=Kaf
Jack daw=Een exter of kaauw
Discourse=Redeneering, reedenvoering, gesprek, vertoog
Gentility=Edelmanschap
To mince it=Met een gemaakten tred gaan
Mincing gait=Een trippelende gang, gemaakte tred

Burgersdijk notes:
Ja, een kruidig man enz. Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked with no date in the pie, for then the man’s date is out. Woordspeling met date, “dadel” en date, “datum, levensduur, tijd”. Evenzoo in Eind goed, al goed”, I. 1. 172: Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in your cheek. — Evenzoo onvertaalbaar is de volgende woordspeling met ward, “stadswijk” en ward, parade bij het schermen.

Topics: order/society, status, judgment, virtue, reputation

Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.2
SPEAKER: Cressida
CONTEXT:
TROILUS
What should they grant? what makes this pretty
abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet
lady in the fountain of our love?
CRESSIDA
More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.
TROILUS
Fears make devils of cherubims; they never see truly.
CRESSIDA
Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer
footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: to
fear the worst oft cures the worse.

DUTCH:
Blinde angst, door het ziend verstand geleid, treedt op
een veiliger grond, dan het blind verstand, dat zonder
angst struikelt; angst te voeden voor het ergste redt dikwijls
voor het ergste.

MORE:
Proverb: It is good to fear the worst

Abruption=Breaking off
Curious=Requiring attention
Dreg=Impurity
Have eyes=Are perceptive
Compleat:
Abrupt=Afgebroken, onbesuist, woest
Curious=Aardig, keurlyk, keurig, nieuwsgierig, weetgierig, net, kurieus
Curious meat=Keurlyke spyze
Dregs=Droessem, grondsop
To draw off the dregs=Zuiveren, klaar maaken

Topics: proverbs and idioms, reason, good and bad

Both merits poised, each weighs nor less nor more

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.1
SPEAKER: Diomedes
CONTEXT:
PARIS
And tell me, noble Diomed, faith, tell me true,
Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship,
Who, in your thoughts, merits fair Helen best,
Myself or Menelaus?
DIOMEDES
Both alike:
He merits well to have her, that doth seek her,
Not making any scruple of her soilure,
With such a hell of pain and world of charge,
And you as well to keep her, that defend her,
Not palating the taste of her dishonour,
With such a costly loss of wealth and friends:
He, like a puling cuckold, would drink up
The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece;
You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins
Are pleased to breed out your inheritors:
Both merits poised, each weighs nor less nor more;
But he as he, the heavier for a whore.
PARIS
You are too bitter to your countrywoman.

DUTCH:
U beider waarde
Weegt even zwaar, of weegt er een iets meer,
Dan drukt de lichtekooi zijn schaal iets neer.

MORE:
Merits=Deserves
Scruple=Very small unit of weight
Hold well=Esteem
Poised=Weighed
Soilure=Stain
Lees=Sediment
Compleat:
Merit=Verdienste
Scruple=Een gewigtje van xx greinen
Poised=Gewoogen, gewikt; evenwigtig
To soil=Bezoedelen, vuyl maaken, bevlekken
Lees=Droessem, grondsop

Topics: merit, conflict, rivalry

Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you, which better fits a lion than a man

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 5.3
SPEAKER: Troilus
CONTEXT:
HECTOR
No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth;
I am to-day i’ the vein of chivalry:
Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong,
And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.
Unarm thee, go, and doubt thou not, brave boy,
I’ll stand to-day for thee and me and Troy.
TROILUS
Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
Which better fits a lion than a man.
HECTOR
What vice is that, good Troilus? chide me for it.
TROILUS
When many times the captive Grecian falls,
Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
You bid them rise, and live.
HECTOR
O,’tis fair play.
TROILUS
Fool’s play, by heaven, Hector.

DUTCH:
Gij hebt een edelmoedigheid -gebrek,
Dat, broeder, leeuwen beter staat dan mannen.

MORE:
Doff=Take off
Harnass=Armour
Vein=Mood for
Knots=Bulges
Brush=Encounter
Lion=Supposedly didn’t attack still or surrendering prey
Captive=Wretched
Compleat:
To doff=Afligen, afdoen
Vein=Ader; styl

Topics: age/experience, mercy

Emulation hath a thousand sons that one by one pursue

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
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 honour bright: to have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
For honour 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 entered 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’er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o’ertop yours;
For time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour 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
Than 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.

DUTCH:
Dus, houd het pad,
Want roembegeerte heeft een duizend zoons,
Die, de een den ander, dringen; wijkt gij uit,
Of treedt gij zijwaarts van het rechte pad,
Dan stroomen ze allen toe als ‘t wassend tij,
Voorbij u, u vooruit;

MORE:
Time was originally personified as a money collector for Forgetfulness, based on an old saying

Wallet=Satchel, beggar’s bag
Alms=Donations
Mail=Armour
One but goes abreast=Single file
Instant=Direct
Strait=Narrow passage
Forthright=Straight path
Rank=Row
Abject=Worthless
Calumniating=Slandering
Touch of nature=Natural trait
Gawds=Trivia
Laud=Praise
Overtop=Surpass
Emulous=Envying, rivalry
Faction=Taking sides
Compleat:
Wallet=Knapzak
Alms=Een aalmoes
Mail=Een maalie-wambes, maalijen-kolder
Abreast=Naast malkander
Instant=Aanhoudende, dringende
Strait=Eng, naauw, bekrompen, strikt
Rank=Rang, waardigheid
Abject=Veracht, gering, snood, lafhartig, verworpen
To calumniate=Lasteren, schandvlekken, eerrooven
Gawd=Wisje-wasjes, beuzelingen
To laud=Looven, pryzen
Over-top=Te boven gaan, overschryden
Emulous=Naayverig, nydig
Faction=Samenrotting, saamenspanning, oproerige party, rot, aanhang, partyschap, verdeeldheid

Burgersdijk notes
Ja, Mars tot strijden dreef. Hiervan maakt Homerus gewag.

Topics: honesty, value, integrity, respect, reputation

Engaging and redeeming of himself with such a careless force and forceless care

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 5.5
SPEAKER: Nestor
CONTEXT:
NESTOR
Go, bear Patroclus’ body to Achilles;
And bid the snail-paced Ajax arm for shame.
There is a thousand Hectors in the field:
Now here he fights on Galathe his horse,
And there lacks work; anon he’s there afoot,
And there they fly or die, like scaled sculls
Before the belching whale; then is he yonder,
And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge,
Fall down before him, like the mower’s swath:
Here, there, and every where, he leaves and takes,
Dexterity so obeying appetite
That what he will he does, and does so much
That proof is called impossibility.
ULYSSES
O, courage, courage, princes! great Achilles
Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance:
Patroclus’ wounds have roused his drowsy blood,
Together with his mangled Myrmidons,
That noseless, handless, hacked and chipped, come to him,
Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend
And foams at mouth, and he is armed and at it,
Roaring for Troilus, who hath done to-day
Mad and fantastic execution,
Engaging and redeeming of himself
With such a careless force and forceless care
As if that luck, in very spite of cunning,
Bade him win all.

DUTCH:
Troilus, die zich op heden
Dolzinnig, ongeloof’lijk heeft geweerd,
Zich in gevaar begeven en bevrijd,
Zoo zorgloos krachtvol en zoo krachtloos zorgend,
Alsof ‘t geluk, elk krijgsbeleid ten trots,
Hem alles winnen deed.

MORE:
Scull=Shoal of fish
Belching=Spouting
Edge=Blade
Swath=Sweep of the scythe ( Nestor picturing Hector as a Grim Reaper figure)
Appetite=Inclination
Proof=Fact
Mangled=Gored
Fantastic=Extravagant
Engaging=(1) Binding, pledging; (2) Close fighting
Careless force=Reckless strength
Forceless care=Effortless diligence
Compleat:
Belch=Oprisping
Edge=Snee van een mes
To swathe=Zwachtelen, in de luyeren vinden, bakeren
Appetite=Graagte, lust, begeerte, trek
Proof=Beproeving
Mangled=Opgereeten, van een gescheurd, gehakkeld
Fantastick=Byzinnig, eygenzinnig, grilziek
To engage=Verpligten, verbinden, verpanden. To engage in war=Zich in oorlog inwikkelen
To engage in an actoin=Zich in eenig bedryf mengen, zich in iets steeken
Careless=Zorgeloos, kommerloos, achteloos, onachtzaam

Topics: skill/talent, conflict, anger, courage

Even so doth valour’s show and valour’s worth divide in storms of fortune

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: Nestor
CONTEXT:
NESTOR
With due observance of thy godlike seat,
Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply
Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men: the sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail
Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk!
But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and anon behold
The strong-ribbed bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements,
Like Perseus’ horse: where’s then the saucy boat
Whose weak untimbered sides but even now
Co-rivalled greatness? Either to harbour fled,
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so
Doth valour’s show and valour’s worth divide
In storms of fortune; for in her ray and brightness
The herd hath more annoyance by the breeze
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,
And flies fled under shade, why, then the thing of
courage
As roused with rage with rage doth sympathize,
And with an accent tuned in selfsame key
Retorts to chiding fortune.

DUTCH:
Zoo wordt door des noodlots storm vertoon van moed
Van echten moed geschift. Bij held’re zon
Is voor het vee de brems een grooter plaag
Dan zelfs de tijger.

MORE:
Observance=Respect to
Apply=Interpret
Reproof of chance=Reproach from events
Bauble=Insignificant
Boreas=North wind
Thetis=Sea goddess
Moist elements=Water and air
Perseus’ horse=Pegasus, the winged horse
Saucy=Impertinent
But even=Just
Toast=Piece of toast that was floated in wine
Knees=Knee timber, hard wood used for shipbuilding
Compleat:
Observance=Gedienstigheyd, eerbiedigheyd, opmerking, waarneeming
Apply=Toepassen
Reproof=Bestraffing, berisping
Bauble=Spulletje, grol
Saucy=Stout, onbeschaamd, baldaadig
The knees of a ship=De Knies of zystukken van een schip

Topics: authority, adversity, success, fate/destiny

Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing, till he hath lost his honey and his sting

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 5.11
SPEAKER: Pandarus
CONTEXT:
TROILUS
Hence, broker-lackey! ignomy and shame
Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name!
PANDARUS
A goodly medicine for my aching bones! O world!
world! world! thus is the poor agent despised!
O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set
a-work, and how ill requited! why should our
endeavour be so loved and the performance so loathed?
what verse for it? what instance for it? Let me see:
Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing,
Till he hath lost his honey and his sting;
And being once subdued in armed tail,
Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.
Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths.
As many as be here of pander’s hall,
Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar’s fall;
Or if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,
Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.
Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade,
Some two months hence my will shall here be made:
It should be now, but that my fear is this,
Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss:
Till then I’ll sweat and seek about for eases,
And at that time bequeathe you my diseases.

DUTCH:
Recht lustigjes gonst u het bijken in ‘t oor,
Totdat het zijn honig en angel verloor;
Maar ruk aan ‘t dier zijn wapen uit, voortaan
Is ‘t met het zoet van zeem en zang gedaan.

MORE:
Broker-lackey=Pimp, middleman
Ignomy=Ignominy
Instance=Example
Subdued=Defeated
Armed tail=Sting
Cloths=Wall hangings
Pandar=Pandarus, pander: Pimp, procurer, broker
Hold-door trade=Prostitution
Galled=Swollen
Goose=Goose of Wnchester: prostitute (brothels near The Globe were under the jurisdiction of
the Bishop of Winchester)
Compleat:
Broker=Makelaar; Uytdraager
Ignominy=Schande, smaad, naamschending, schandvlek, oneer
Instance=Een voorval, voorbeeld, exempel; aandringing, aanhouding; blyk
Subdue=Onderbrengen, overwinnen, temmen
Pander=Hoerewaard, koppelaar

Burgersdijk notes:
In Pand’rus schuit. In ‘t Engelsch: of pander’s hall. Pander is: koppelaar. — Een Winchester gansjen
beteekent een lichtekooi, en ook een kwaal, door ongebondenheid verkregen. De publieke huizen in Southwark behoorden tot het gebied van den bisschop van Winchester. Men zie 1 Kon. Hendrik
VI, I. 3. 35 en 53.

Topics: reputation, honour, respect

Furnish you fairly for this interchange

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.3
SPEAKER: Agamemnon
CONTEXT:
CALCHAS
You have a Trojan prisoner, called Antenor,
Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear.
Oft have you—often have you thanks therefore—
Desired my Cressid in right great exchange,
Whom Troy hath still denied: but this Antenor,
I know, is such a wrest in their affairs
That their negotiations all must slack,
Wanting his manage; and they will almost
Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,
In change of him: let him be sent, great princes,
And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
Shall quite strike off all service I have done,
In most accepted pain.
AGAMEMNON
Let Diomedes bear him,
And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have
What he requests of us. Good Diomed,
Furnish you fairly for this interchange:
Withal bring word if Hector will to-morrow
Be answered in his challenge: Ajax is ready.
DIOMEDES
This shall I undertake; and ’tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.

DUTCH:
En, Diomedes,
Zorg voor die zaak u waardig uit te rusten;
Bericht ons ook, of Hector nu op morgen
Den kamp laat doorgaan; Ajax is bereid.

MORE:

Wrest=Tuning key
Slack=Slow down, flag
Manage=Guidance
Change of=Exchange for
Accepted=Willingly endured
Furnish=Equip
Compleat:
Wrest=Strykstok
To slack=Losmaaken, ontbinden, bot geeven; (retard) Zammelen, agter blyven
Manage=De bestiering
To furnish=Verschaffen, voorzien, verzorgen, stoffeeren, toetakelen

Topics: value, business, resolution, contract

Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.2
SPEAKER: Pandarus
CONTEXT:
PANDARUS
Go to, a bargain made: seal it, seal it; I’ll be the
witness. Here I hold your hand, here my cousin’s.
If ever you prove false one to another, since I have
taken such pains to bring you together, let all
pitiful goers-between be called to the world’s end
after my name; call them all Pandars; let all
constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids,
and all brokers-between Pandars! say, amen.

DUTCH:
Kom aan, de koop is gesloten; het zegel er op, het
zegel! Ik wil getuige zijn.

MORE:
CITED IN US LAW: Re. the definition of “pandering”: People v Smith, 246 Mich. 393, 395, 224, N.W. 402, 403 (1929)

Bargain=Agreement, contract
Compleat:
Bargain=Een verding, verdrag, koop

Topics: cited in law, contract

He has not so much brain as ear wax

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 5.1
SPEAKER: Thersites
CONTEXT:
THERSITES
With too much blood and too little brain, these two
may run mad; but, if with too much brain and too
little blood they do, I’ll be a curer of madmen.
Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough and one
that loves quails; but he has not so much brain as
earwax: and the goodly transformation of Jupiter
there, his brother, the bull,—the primitive statue,
and oblique memorial of cuckolds; a thrifty
shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother’s
leg,— to what form but that he is, should wit larded
with malice and malice forced with wit turn him to?
To an ass, were nothing; he is both ass and ox: to
an ox, were nothing; he is both ox and ass. To be a
dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an
owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would
not care; but to be Menelaus, I would conspire
against destiny. Ask me not, what I would be, if I
were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse
of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus! Hey-day!

DUTCH:
Daar hebt gij Agamemnon, een tamelijk flinken
kerel en een liefhebber van een lekker boutjen, maar
hersens heeft hij niet zooveel als oorsmeer;

MORE:
Blood=Passion
Brain=Thought
Here’s=For example
Transformation of Jupiter=Into a bull to rape Europe
Primitive=Archetypal
Thrifty=Economical, for profit
Fitchew=Polecat
Puttock=Kite, not a hawk worthy of training (a kite, buzzard or marsh harrier)
Care not to be=Don’t mind being, wouldn’t care if I were
Lazar=Leper
Compleat:
Primitive=Eerst, aaloud, eerstbeginnend
Thrifty=Zuynig, spaarzaam
Puttock (buzzard)=Een buizard, zekere roofvogel

Burgersdijk notes:
Een liefhebber van een lekker boutjen. One that loves quails. Quail is “kwartel” en ook “lichtzinnig
vrouwspersoon”. In ‘t Fransch caille.

Topics: insult, intellect

He is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.2
SPEAKER: Alexander
CONTEXT:
ALEXANDER
They say he is a very man per se,
And stands alone.
CRESSIDA
So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no
legs.
ALEXANDER
This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their
particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion,
churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man
into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his
valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with
discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he
hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he
carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without
cause, and merry against the hair: he hath the
joints of every thing, but everything so out of joint
that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use,
or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

DUTCH:
Hij is zwaarmoedig zonder
oorzaak, en vroolijk tegen alle reden in.

MORE:
Proverb: It goes against the hair

Stands alone=Is unrivalled
Additions=Attributes
Humours=Inclinations, moods
Glimpse=Glimmer
Attaint=Taint, defect
Against the hair=Against the grain
Out of joint=Confused, not as it should be
Purblind=Partially blind
Argus=Deprived of his eyes for falling asleep when on guard
Compleat:
Addition=Bydoening, byvoegsel
The humours=De humeuren van het lichaam; grillen
Humour (dispositon of the mind)=Humeur, of gemoeds gesteldheid
Glimpse=Een Blik, flikkering, schemering
To attaint=Overtuigen van misdaad, schuldig verklaaren, betichten; bevlekken, bederf aanzetten
Attainted=Overtuigd van misdaad, misdaadig verklaard
Purblind=Stikziende

Topics: proverbs and idioms, leadership, skill/talent, dignity

He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.3
SPEAKER: Agamemnon
CONTEXT:
AGAMEMNON
No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as
wise, no less noble, much more gentle, and altogether
more tractable.
AJAX
Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I
know not what pride is.
AGAMEMNON
Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the
fairer. He that is proud eats up himself: pride is
his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle;
and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours
the deed in the praise.
AJAX
I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering of
toads.
NESTOR
Yet he loves himself: is’t not strange?

DUTCH:
Wie trotsch is , eet zichzelf op; trots is zijn
spiegel, zijn trompet, zijn kroniek; en wie zich anders
prijst dan door daden, doet zijn daden door zijn eigenlof
te niet.

MORE:
Proverb: A man’s praise in his own mouth does stink
Proverb: He that praises himself spatters himself
Proverb: Neither praise nor dispraise thyself, thy actions serve the turn
Proverb: To be eat up with pride
Proverb: To sound one’s own trumpet

Tractable=Cooperative, malleable
Glass=Mirror
Devour=Annihilate
Toads=Considered venomous
Compleat:
Tractable=Handelbaar, leenig, buygzaam, zachtzinnnig
Glass=Spiegel
To devour=Verslinden; verteeren; verscheuren

Topics: proverbs and idioms, pride, vanity

He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.1
SPEAKER: Pandarus
CONTEXT:
PANDARUS
Well, I have told you enough of this: for my part,
I’ll not meddle nor make no further. He that will
have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.
TROILUS
Have I not tarried?
PANDARUS
Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.
TROILUS
Have I not tarried?
PANDARUS
Ay, the bolting, but you must tarry the leavening.
TROILUS
Still have I tarried.
PANDARUS
Ay, to the leavening; but here’s yet in the word
‘hereafter’ the kneading, the making of the cake, the
heating of the oven and the baking; nay, you must
stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.

DUTCH:
Wie een koek wil hebben van weitemeel, moet het malen afwachten.

MORE:
Proverb: I will neither meddle nor make

Bolting=Sifting (also ‘boulting’)
Tarry=Wait for
Compleat:
Meddle=Bemoeijen, moeijen
To bolt=Builen, ziften; betwisten
Bolting=Builende
Bolting (an exercise at Grays Inn)=Een redentwist in de Rechtsgeleerdheid
To tarry=Sukkelen, zammelen, leuteren
Tarried=Vertoefd, gewagt

Topics: proverbs and idioms, advice, preparation

Health to you, valiant sir, during all question of the gentle truce

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.1
SPEAKER: Aeneas
CONTEXT:
PARIS
A valiant Greek, Aeneas,—take his hand,—
Witness the process of your speech, wherein
You told how Diomed, a whole week by days,
Did haunt you in the field.
AENEAS
Health to you, valiant sir,
During all question of the gentle truce;
But when I meet you armed, as black defiance
As heart can think or courage execute.
DIOMEDES
The one and other Diomed embraces.
Our bloods are now in calm; and, so long, health!
But when contention and occasion meet,
By Jove, I’ll play the hunter for thy life
With all my force, pursuit and policy.
AENEAS
And thou shalt hunt a lion, that will fly
With his face backward. In humane gentleness,
Welcome to Troy! now, by Anchises’ life,
Welcome, indeed! By Venus’ hand I swear,
No man alive can love in such a sort
The thing he means to kill more excellently.

DUTCH:
Heil u, held,
Bij elk verkeer der kalme wapenschorsing;
Maar bij den eersten kamp een groet, zoo norsch,
Als ‘t hart bedenken kan of moed kan bieden.

MORE:
Process=Drift, gist
By days=Day by day
Haunt=Pursue, bother
Question=Discussion
Contention and occasion meet=Fighting starts
Compleat:
To haunt=Verkeeren, omgaan, lastig vallen, plaagen
To haunt one=Iemand met zyn gezelschap verveelen
Question=Verschil, vraag, twyffel
Contention=Twist, krakkeel, geharrewaar
Occasion=Gelegenheyd, voorval, oorzaak

Burgersdijk notes:
Bij Anchises’ leven…. bij Venus’ hand. Anchises en Venus waren de ouders van Aeneas.

Topics: conflict, time, friendship

Her brain-sick raptures cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.2
SPEAKER: Hector
CONTEXT:
HECTOR
Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains
Of divination in our sister work
Some touches of remorse? or is your blood
So madly hot that no discourse of reason,
Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,
Can qualify the same?
TROILUS
Why, brother Hector,
We may not think the justness of each act
Such and no other than event doth form it,
Nor once deject the courage of our minds,
Because Cassandra’s mad: her brain-sick raptures
Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel
Which hath our several honours all engaged
To make it gracious. For my private part,
I am no more touched than all Priam’s sons:
And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us
Such things as might offend the weakest spleen
To fight for and maintain!

DUTCH:
Haar dolle vlagen
Vermogen niet een goeden strijd te onteeren,
Dien wij, onze eer verpandend, allen zwoeren
Als vroom te doen erkennen.

MORE:
Strains=Motions, impulses; drift
Divination=Prophecy
Discourse of reason=Rational argument
Success=Outcome
Qualify=Moderate
Event=Result
Raptures=Possession, fit
Distaste=To make distasteful
Several=Separate
Weakest spleen=The least courageous
Compleat:
Strain=Trant
Divination=Waarzegging, waarzeggerij, voorzegging
Discourse=Redeneering, reedenvoering, gesprek, vertoog
Success=Uitkomst, hetzij goed of kwaad
Qualify=Maatigen, temperen
Event=Uytkomst, uytslag
Rapture=Verrukking
Distaste=Weersmaak, weerzin, misnoegen
To give distaste=Misnoegen veroorzaaken
Several=Verscheyden
Spleen (Spite, hatred or grudge)=Spyt, haat, wrak

Topics: fate/destiny, reason, dispute, justification

I am a bastard, too. I love bastards!

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 5.9
SPEAKER: Thersites
CONTEXT:
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 every thing 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.

DUTCH:
Ik ben ook een bastaard. Ik houd van bastaards; ik
ben als bastaard verwekt, als bastaard opgevoed, bastaard
in mijn geest, bastaard in moed, in alle opzichten onecht.

MORE:
Proverb: One wolf (bear) will not eat (bite, prey upon) another

Quarrel=Fight
Ominous=Fatal, pernicious
Tempt=Provoke
Compleat:
Quarrel=Krakeel; twist
Ominous=Voorduydende, een quaad voorteken
To tempt=Aanvechten, verzoeken, bekooren, bestryden

Topics: proverbs and idioms, respect, relationship

I am giddy; expectation whirls me round

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.2
SPEAKER: Troilus
CONTEXT:
TROILUS
I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
The imaginary relish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense: what will it be,
When that the watery palate tastes indeed
Love’s thrice repured nectar? death, I fear me,
Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine,
Too subtle-potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness,
For the capacity of my ruder powers:
I fear it much; and I do fear besides,
That I shall lose distinction in my joys;
As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
The enemy flying.

DUTCH:
Ik duizel; ‘t wachten draait mij om en rond
Het voorgevoel van ‘t heil is reeds zoo zoet,
Dat ziel en zinnen zijn betooverd.

MORE:
Watery=Watering
Nectar=Drink of the gods
Fine=Exquisite
Ruder=Unrefined
Distinction=Ability to discriminate
On heaps=All together
Compleat:
Nectar=Goden-drank
Fine=Uitmuntent
Rude=Ruuw. Rudely (or coarsly)=Groffelyk
Distinction=Onderscheid, onderscheiding; afscheiding

Topics: love, emotion and mood

I am too courtly, and thou art too cunning

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.1
SPEAKER: Pandarus
CONTEXT:
SERVANT
Who shall I command, sir?
PANDARUS
Friend, we understand not one another: I am too
courtly and thou art too cunning. At whose request
do these men play?
SERVANT
That’s to ‘t indeed, sir: marry, sir, at the request
of Paris my lord, who’s there in person; with him,
the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of beauty, love’s
invisible soul,—
PANDARUS
Who, my cousin Cressida?
SERVANT
No, sir, Helen: could you not find out that by her
attributes?

DUTCH:
Vriend, wij verstaan elkander niet; ik ben te hoffelijk
en gij te gevat. Wie heeft die menschen hier besteld?

MORE:
Courtly=Elegant, polite
Cunning=Crafty
Venus=Goddess of Beauty (but the servant means Helen)
Compleat:
Courtly=Lugtig, gallant, hoflyk
Cunning=Loosheid, Listigheid

Topics: civility, order/society, language, communication, understanding

I do beseech you, as in way of taste, to give me now a little benefit, out of those many registered in promise

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.3
SPEAKER: Calchas
CONTEXT:
CALCHAS
Now, princes, for the service I have done you,
The advantage of the time prompts me aloud
To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind
That, through the sight I bear in things to love,
I have abandoned Troy, left my possession,
Incurred a traitor’s name; exposed myself,
From certain and possessed conveniences,
To doubtful fortunes; sequestering from me all
That time, acquaintance, custom and condition
Made tame and most familiar to my nature,
And here, to do you service, am become
As new into the world, strange, unacquainted:
I do beseech you, as in way of taste,
To give me now a little benefit,
Out of those many registered in promise,
Which, you say, live to come in my behalf.

DUTCH:
Zoo smeek ik dan, dat gij mij thans als voorproef
Een luttel gunstbewijs verleenen wilt,
Uit al de velen, plechtig mij beloofd,
Als in de toekomst, naar gij zegt, mij wachtend.

MORE:
Advantage=Opportunity
Possession=Worldly goods
Sequestering=Divorcing
Condition=Position, standing
Taste=Test
To come=To be fulfilled
Compleat:
Advantage=Voordeel, voorrecht, winst, gewin, toegift
Possession=(enjoyment) Bezit, genot; (demesnes, lands, tenements) Domeinen, goederen, landen
To sequester=In eene derde hand in bewaaring geven; Afscheiden; (widow disclaiming the estate of her deceased husband) De sleuten op de kist leggen; van het goed des overledenen mans afstand doen
Condition=Staat, gesteltenis
Taste=Proeven

Burgersdijk notes:
In de toekomst blikkend. Hier is de lezing der vierde folio-uitgave gevolgd: in things to come; de oudere drukken hebben: in things to love.

Topics: advantage/benefit, satisfaction, work, loyalty

I do not strain at the position,— it is familiar,—but at the author’s drift

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
I do not strain at the position,—
It is familiar,—but at the author’s drift;
Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves
That no man is the lord of any thing,
Though in and of him there be much consisting,
Till he communicate his parts to others:
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
Till he behold them formed in the applause
Where they’re extended; who, like an arch, reverberates
The voice again, or, like a gate of steel
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
His figure and his heat. I was much wrapt in this;
And apprehended here immediately
The unknown Ajax.
Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse,
That has he knows not what. Nature, what things there are
Most abject in regard and dear in use!
What things again most dear in the esteem
And poor in worth! Now shall we see to-morrow—
An act that very chance doth throw upon him—
Ajax renowned. O heavens, what some men do,
While some men leave to do!
How some men creep in skittish fortune’s hall,
Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another’s pride,
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords!— why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,
As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast
And great Troy shrinking.

DUTCH:
Wat mij verbaast, is niet de stelling zelf,
Die elk wel kent, maar wel ‘t besluit des schrijvers

MORE:
Strain at=Struggle to accept
Position=Argument
Drift=Meaning, gist
Circumstance=Detail of an argument
Expressly=In full, explicitly
In and of=He and his actions
Consisting=Quality, substance
Parts=Qualities
Formed in=Reflected in
Arch=Vault
Figure=Appearance
Abject in regard=Despised
Dear in use=Useful
Dear in the esteem=Highly regarded
Poor in worth=Of little value
Lubber=Lout
Shrinking=Weakening
Compleat:
Strain hard=Alle zyne krachten inspannen; lustig zyn best doen
Position=Legging, stelling
Drift=Oogmerk, opzet, vaart
Circumstance=Omstandigheyd
Circumstanced=Met omstandigheden belegd, onder omstandigheden begreepen
Expressely or Expresly=Duidelyk; uitdrukkelyk
Consistence=Bestaanlykheid; saamenbestaanlykheid
Parts=Deelen, hoedaanigheden, begaafdheden
Form=Wyze, gedaante
Arch=Een gewelf, boog
Figure (or representation)=Afbeelding
Figure (or appearance)=Gedaante, aanzien
Abject=Veracht, gering, snood, lafhartig, verworpen
Dear=Waard, lief, dierbaar, duur
Lubber=Een sul, slokker, zwabber, een lubbert

Topics: communication, persuasion, reputation, value, appearance, merit

I have a young conception in my brain; be you my time to bring it to some shape

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
I have a young conception in my brain;
Be you my time to bring it to some shape.
NESTOR
What is’t?
ULYSSES
This ’tis:
Blunt wedges rive hard knots: the seeded pride
That hath to this maturity blown up
In rank Achilles must or now be cropped,
Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil,
To overbulk us all.
NESTOR
Well, and how?
ULYSSES
This challenge that the gallant Hector sends,
However it is spread in general name,
Relates in purpose only to Achilles.

DUTCH:
Een jong ontwerp is in mijn brein verwekt;
Wees gij de tijd, die het tot rijpheid brengt.

MORE:
Proverb: A knotty piece of timber must have sharp wedges
Proverb: Blunt edges rive hard knots

Young conception=Germ of an idea
Blown=Swelled
Rank=Overgrown
Shedding=Dispersing its seeds
Compleat:
Conception=Bevatting
Rank (that shoots too many leaves or branches)=Weelig, dat te veel takken of bladen schiet
To grow rank=Al te weelit groeien
Shedding=Storting, vergieting

Topics: proverbs and idioms, plans/intentions, pride

I have had my labour for my travail

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.1
SPEAKER: Pandarus
CONTEXT:
PANDARUS
Faith, I’ll not meddle in ‘t. Let her be as she is:
if she be fair, ’tis the better for her; an she be
not, she has the mends in her own hands.
TROILUS
Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus!
PANDARUS
I have had my labour for my travail; ill-thought on of
her and ill-thought on of you; gone between and
between, but small thanks for my labour.
TROILUS
What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me?
PANDARUS
Because she’s kin to me, therefore she’s not so fair
as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as
fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care
I? I care not an she were a black-a-moor; ’tis all one
to me.

DUTCH:
Nu, ik wil er mij niet mede bemoeien. Zij moge zijn
zooals zij is; is zij schoon, des te beter voor haar; is zij
het niet, nu dan staat het wel in haar macht, dit te
verhelpen.

MORE:
Proverb: I will neither meddle nor make
Proverb: The mends (amends) is in his own hands

Mends=Remedy
My labour for my travail=Efforts as their own reward
Friday and Sunday=Everyday dress or Sunday best
Blackamoor=A generic name for a black African person.
All one=All the same
Compleat:
Meddle=Bemoeijen, moeijen
To mend=Verbeteren, beteren; verstellen, lappen
Labour=Arbeid, moeite, werk
Black-moor or Blackamore=Een Moriaan, Zwart
It is all one to me=’t Scheelt my niet

Burgersdijk notes:
Dit te verhelpen. Door blanketsel, valsch haar enz.
Helena op Zondag. In ‘t Fransch zegt men ook: beauté des dimanches.

Topics: proverbs and idioms, remedy, anger, ingratitude, work

I see my reputation is at stake my fame is shrewdly gored

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.3
SPEAKER: Achilles
CONTEXT:
ACHILLES
Shall Ajax fight with Hector?
PATROCLUS
Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.
ACHILLES
I see my reputation is at stake
My fame is shrewdly gored.
PATROCLUS
O, then, beware;
Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves:
Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Even then when we sit idly in the sun.
ACHILLES
Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus:
I’ll send the fool to Ajax and desire him
To invite the Trojan lords after the combat
To see us here unarmed: I have a woman’s longing,
An appetite that I am sick withal,
To see great Hector in his weeds of peace,
To talk with him and to behold his visage,
Even to my full of view.

DUTCH:
Ik zie, mijn naam staat op het spel; mijn roem
Wordt zwaar bezoedeld.

MORE:
Shrewdly=Severely
Gored=Wounded, harmed
Commission=Warrant
Blank=Blank charter
Ague=Fever
Taint=Corrupt
Weeds=Garments
Full of view=To the satisfaction of my eyes
Compleat:
Shrewdly (very much)=Sterk
Gored=Doorsteeken, doorstooten
A blank=Een Papier in blank
Ague=Koorts die met koude komt, een verpoozende koorts
To attaint=Overtuigen van misdaad, schuldig verklaaren, betichten; bevlekken, bederf aanzetten
Weeds (habit or garment)=Kleederen, gewaad

Topics: conflict, rivalry, reputation, caution

I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of fools

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.1
SPEAKER: Thersites
CONTEXT:
THERSITES
I will hold my peace when Achilles’ brach bids me,
shall I?
ACHILLES
There’s for you, Patroclus.
THERSITES
I will see you hanged, like clotpoles, ere I come
any more to your tents: I will keep where there is
wit stirring and leave the faction of fools.
PATROCLUS
A good riddance.
ACHILLES
Marry, this, sir, is proclaimed through all our host:
That Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun,
Will with a trumpet ‘twixt our tents and Troy
To-morrow morning call some knight to arms
That hath a stomach; and such a one that dare
Maintain—I know not what: ’tis trash. Farewell.

DUTCH:
Ik wil u gehangen zien als domme kinkels, eer ik ooit
weer in uwe tenten kom; ik wil gaan, waar verstand in
zwang is en de samenkomsten van narren vermijden.

MORE:
Brach=Kind of scenting-dog
Clotpole=Blockhead
Fifth hour=11 o’clock
Stomach=Appetite for fighting
Compleat:
Brack=Teef
Clot-head=Plompaard, botterik
Stomach=Trek (appetite); hart (spirit)

Topics: authority, conflict, loyalty

I will make a complimental assault upon him

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.1
SPEAKER: Pandarus
CONTEXT:
PANDARUS
It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the
Lady Cressida. I come to speak with Paris from the
Prince Troilus: I will make a complimental assault
upon him, for my business seethes.
SERVANT
Sodden business! there’s a stewed phrase indeed!

DUTCH:
Ik wil hem met hoffelijkheden bestormen, want
mijn boodschap kookt in mij.

MORE:
Fellow=A slightly insulting way of addressing the servant, pointing out his lower class
Complimental=Ceremonial, full of flattery
Seethes=Is very urgent
Sodden=Boiled; stupid or drunk
Stewed=Overdone
Compleat:
A cunning fellow=Een doortrapte vent, een looze gast
To compliment=Een pligtreeden afleggen, pligtpleegen, dienstbieden
To seeth=Zieden, kooken
Sod, sodden=[van to seeth] Gezooden, gekookt
To stew=Stooven

Topics: language, civility, persuasion, flattery

I will no more trust him when he leers than I will a serpent when he hisses

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 5.1
SPEAKER: Thersites
CONTEXT:
THERSITES
That same Diomed’s a false-hearted rogue, a most
unjust knave; I will no more trust him when he leers
than I will a serpent when he hisses: he will spend
his mouth, and promise, like Brabbler the hound:
but when he performs, astronomers foretell it; it
is prodigious, there will come some change; the sun
borrows of the moon, when Diomed keeps his
word. I will rather leave to see Hector, than
not to dog him: they say he keeps a Trojan
drab, and uses the traitor Calchas’ tent: I’ll
after. Nothing but lechery! all incontinent varlets!

DUTCH:
Die Diomedes is toch een valsche schelm, een recht
gemeene kerel; ik vertrouw hem, wanneer hij glimlacht,
al even weinig als een slang, wanneer zij sist.

MORE:

Unjust=False, perfidious
Leers=Smiles (not pejorative)
Brabbler=A dog that barks
Prodigious=Ominous
Leave to see=Stop seeing
To dog=Pursue
Drab=Strumpet
Incontinent=Promiscuous
Compleat:
Unjust=Onrechtvaerdig, onbillyk
To leer=Begluuren
Brabbler=Een krakkeeler
Prodigious=Wonderbaar, overzeldzaam, gedrochtelyk, wanschapen, gansch ongemeen, byster
To dog one=Iemand van achteren volgen
Drab=Een openbaare hoer, straathoer
Incontinent=Ontuchtig

Topics: trust, truth, honesty

If I could have remembered a gilt counterfeit, thou wouldst not have slipped out of my contemplation

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.3
SPEAKER: Thersites
CONTEXT:
THERSITES
If I could have remembered a gilt counterfeit, thou
wouldst not have slipped out of my contemplation: but
it is no matter; thyself upon thyself! The common
curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in
great revenue! heaven bless thee from a tutor, and
discipline come not near thee! Let thy blood be thy
direction till thy death! then if she that lays thee
out says thou art a fair corse, I’ll be sworn and
sworn upon’t she never shrouded any but lazars.
Amen. Where’s Achilles?

DUTCH:
Als ik mij een vergulde valsche munt had kunnen
herinneren, dan zoudt gij mij niet uit de gedachte gebleven
zijn.

MORE:
Gilt counterfeit=Forged gold coin
Contemplation=Prayers, meditation
Bless=Preserve
Discipline=Instruction
Blood=Passion
Direction=Guide
Corse=Corpse
Lazar=Leper
Compleat:
Counterfeit=Naamaaksel
Contemplation=Beschouwing, bespiegeling, opgetoogenheid, overpeinzing
To discipline=Onderwyzen, oeffenen, in tucht houden, tuchtigen, onder tzim houden
Direction=Het bestier, aanwijzing
Corse=Lijk

Burgersdijk notes:
Een vergulde valsche munt. In ‘t Engelsch: a gild counterfeit. Een valsche munt, counterfeit, wordt ook slip genoemd, en hierop doelt het volgende slipped; men vergelijke (in het oorspronkelijke) Romeo en Julia, II. 4. 51. – Dat hier ook met den gelijken klank van gild, verguld, en guilt, schuld, gespeeld wordt, is duidelijk.

Topics: memory, loyalty, integrity

In the reproof of chance lies the true proof of men

DUTCH:
Des menschen ware toetssteen
Is de ongunst van het lot. Bij effen zee
Waagt moedig meen’ge vlakke kleine boot
Zich op haar kalme borst en stevent voort
Naast eed’ler zeekasteelen.

Topics: authority, adversity, success, fate/destiny

Injurious time now with a robber’s haste crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.5
SPEAKER: Troilus
CONTEXT:
TROILUS
And suddenly; where injury of chance
Puts back leave-taking, justles roughly by
All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips
Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents
Our locked embrasures, strangles our dear vows
Even in the birth of our own labouring breath:
We two, that with so many thousand sighs
Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves
With the rude brevity and discharge of one.
Injurious time now with a robber’s haste
Crams his rich thievery up, he knows not how:
As many farewells as be stars in heaven,
With distinct breath and consigned kisses to them,
He fumbles up into a loose adieu,
And scants us with a single famished kiss,
Distasted with the salt of broken tears.

DUTCH:
De booze tijd steekt, met de haast eens diefs,
Zijn rijken roofbuit op, hij weet niet hoe;

MORE:
Injury of chance=Bad luck
Puts back=Prevents
Justle=Press, force
Prevent our lips from meeting=(1) Cannot kiss; (2) Cannot close their mouths
Rudely=Roughly
Beguile=Cheat, rob
Rejoinder=Rejoining
Thievery=Stolen goods
Distinct=Separate
Scants=Limit, begrudge
Compleat:
To put back=Te rug zetten, achter uit zetten
Justle=Stooten, horten
Rude=Ruuw. Rudely (or coarsly)=Groffelyk
To beguile=Bedriegen, om den tuyn leyden
Thievery=Dievery
Distinct=Onderscheyden, afzonderlyk, duydelyk
Scant=Bekrompen, schaars

Topics: fate/destiny, time

Instructed by the antiquary times, he must, he is, he cannot but be wise

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure;
Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck:
Famed be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature
Thrice famed, beyond all erudition:
But he that disciplined thy arms to fight,
Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
And give him half: and, for thy vigour,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield
To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,
Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines
Thy spacious and dilated parts: here’s Nestor;
Instructed by the antiquary times,
He must, he is, he cannot but be wise:
Put pardon, father Nestor, were your days
As green as Ajax’ and your brain so tempered,
You should not have the eminence of him,
But be as Ajax.

DUTCH:
Ik zwijg nog van uw wijsheid,
Want die begrenst gelijk een paal, steen, strand,
‘t Ruim veld van uwe deugden. Hier is Nestor;
Diep in de grauwende oudheid doorgedrongen,
Kan, moet hij wijs zijn, kan niet anders zijn

MORE:
Composure=Disposition
Parts of nature=Natural qualities
Erudition=Learning
Milo=Greek athlete who famously competed whilst carrying a bull on his shoulders.
Addition=Title, reputation
Bourn=Boundary
Pale=Fence; enclosure
Antiquary times=Antiquity
Father=Not literal, but a sign of respect
Green=Young, fresh; gullible
Eminence=Superiority
Compleat:
Composure of mind=Bezadigdheid des gemoeds
Parts=Deelen, hoedaanigheden, begaafdheden
Erudition=Geleerdheid
Addition=Bydoening, byvoegsel
Bourn=Een bron
To pale in=Met paalen afperken, afpaalen. Paled in=Rondom met paalen bezet, afgepaald
Green: (not ripe)=Onryp; (raw)=Een nieuweling
Eminence=Uytsteekendheyd, hoogte

Topics: learning/education, civility, wisdom, intellect

It is the purpose that makes strong the vow; but vows to every purpose must not hold

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 5.3
SPEAKER: Cassandra
CONTEXT:
CASSANDRA
The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows:
They are polluted offerings, more abhorred
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.
ANDROMACHE
O, be persuaded! do not count it holy
To hurt by being just: it is as lawful,
For we would give much, to use violent thefts,
And rob in the behalf of charity.
CASSANDRA
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow;
But vows to every purpose must not hold:
Unarm, sweet Hector.
HECTOR
Hold you still, I say;
Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate:
Life every man holds dear; but the brave man
Holds honour far more precious-dear than life.

DUTCH:
t Is de inhoud, die een eed verbindend maakt;
Niet iedere eed, van eiken inhoud, bindt.
Ontwapen u, mijn Hector!

MORE:
Proverb: Either live or die with honour

Peevish=Headstrong
Polluted=Defiled
Must not=Need not
Hold=Be binding
Keeps the weather=Has the advantage of (ref to being windward in sailing)
Compleat:
Peevish=Kribbig, gemelyk
To pollute=Bevlekken, besmetten, bezoedelen

Burgersdijk notes:
Te kwetsen uit lout’re zucht tot recht. D.i. uit zucht om een te lichtzinnig gezworen eed te houden. De folio heeft hier drie regels, die in de quarto ontbreken, doch een er van is bedorven of er is een regel verloren gegaan. De zin is echter duidelijk genoeg.

Topics: proverbs and idioms, promise, debt/obligation

It lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.3
SPEAKER: Thersites
CONTEXT:
THERSITES
Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock,—a stride
and a stand: ruminates like an hostess that hath no
arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning:
bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should
say ‘There were wit in this head, an ‘twould out;’
and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire
in a flint, which will not show without knocking.
The man’s undone forever; for if Hector break not his
neck i’ the combat, he’ll break ‘t himself in
vain-glory. He knows not me: I said ‘Good morrow,
Ajax;’ and he replies ‘Thanks, Agamemnon.’ What think
you of this man that takes me for the general? He’s
grown a very land-fish, language-less, a monster.
A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both
sides, like a leather jerkin.

DUTCH:
Het huist zoo koud in hem als vuur in een
keisteen en komt alleen door slaan voor den dag

MORE:
Proverb: In the coldest flint there is hot fire

Ruminate=To muse, to meditate, to ponder
Arithmetic=Table or other aid for multiplication
Set down=Determine
Reckoning=Bill
Politic=Judicious
Undone=Ruined
Vain-glory=Vanity
Opinion=Self-regard
Compleat:
To ruminate upon (to consider of) a thing=Eene zaak overweegen
Arithmetick=Rekenkonst
Reckoning=Rekenen
Politick (or cunning)=Slim, schrander, doorsleepen
Undone=Ontdaan, losgemaakt
Vain-glory=Ydele glorie
Opinion=Goeddunken, meening, gevoelen, waan

Topics: proverbs and idioms, pride, vanity, intellect, reputation

Lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery; nothing else holds fashion:

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 5.2
SPEAKER: Thersites
CONTEXT:
AENEAS
I have been seeking you this hour, my lord:
Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy;
Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.
TROILUS
Have with you, prince. My courteous lord, adieu.
Farewell, revolted fair! and, Diomed,
Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head!
ULYSSES
I’ll bring you to the gates.
TROILUS
Accept distracted thanks.
THERSITES
Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would
croak like a raven; I would bode, I would bode.
Patroclus will give me any thing for the
intelligence of this whore: the parrot will not
do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab.
Lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery; nothing
else holds fashion: a burning devil take them!

DUTCH:
Ontucht, ontucht; niets dan oorlog en ontucht! niets anders
blijft in de mode. Een verschroeiende duivel pakke hen
allen!

MORE:
Proverb: An almond for parrot
Proverb: Crack me that nut, quoth Bumstead

Bode=Predict evil
Intelligence=Information on
Raven=Regarded as a bad omen
Commodious=Accommodating
Drab=Strumpet
Compleat:
To bode=Voorzeggen, voorspellen
Intelligence=Kundschap, verstandhouding
To give intelligence=Kundschap geeven, overbrieven
Commodious=Gemaaklyk, geryflyk
Drab=Een openbaare hoer, straathoer

Topics: proverbs and idioms, deceit

Let me be privileged by my place and message, to be a speaker free

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.4
SPEAKER: Diomedes
CONTEXT:
DIOMEDES
O, be not moved, Prince Troilus:
Let me be privileged by my place and message,
To be a speaker free; when I am hence
I’ll answer to my lust: and know you, lord,
I’ll nothing do on charge: to her own worth
She shall be prized; but that you say ‘be’t so,’
I’ll speak it in my spirit and honour, ‘no.’
TROILUS
Come, to the port. I’ll tell thee, Diomed,
This brave shall oft make thee to hide thy head.
Lady, give me your hand, and, as we walk,
To our own selves bend we our needful talk.

DUTCH:
En gun aan mij als afgezant mijn voorrecht
Van vrij te spreken; ben ik van hier weg,
Dan handel ik naar mijnen wil

MORE:
Place=Office, position
Answer to my lust=Do as I please
Charge=Command
Brave=Boast
Needful=Urgent, important
Compleat:
Place=Plaats
Lust=Begeerlykheid
Charge=Belasten, bevelen, opleggen, te laste leggen
To brave=Trotsen, braveeren, trotseeren, moedig treden
Needfull=Noodig, dienstig

Topics: status, free will

Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.3
SPEAKER: Agamemnon
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles
Keeps thicket. Please it our great general
To call together all his state of war.
Fresh kings are come to Troy. Tomorrow
We must with all our main of power stand fast.
And here’s a lord—come knights from east to west
And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.
AGAMEMNON
Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep.
Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.

DUTCH:
t Groot schip ga diep, de boot bezweeft den vloed.

MORE:
General=Agamemnon
State=Council
Main of power=Full might
Cope=Engage
Hulks=Large vessels
Compleat:
State=een staat, de rang
With might and main=Met kracht en geweld
To cope=Vechten, slaan; Voortkomen; Uitsteeken

Topics: conflict, leadership

Men prize the thing ungained more than it is

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.2
SPEAKER: Cressida
CONTEXT:
CRESSIDA
By the same token, you are a bawd.
Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love’s full sacrifice,
He offers in another’s enterprise;
But more in Troilus thousand fold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be;
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.
That she beloved knows nought that knows not this:
Men prize the thing ungained more than it is:
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue.
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:
Achievement is command; ungained, beseech:
Then though my heart’s content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

DUTCH:
O, niets weet die beminde, die niet weet,
Dat, wat de man niet wint, hem kostlijkst heet; (…)

MORE:
Bawd=Procurer (pimp)
Glass=Mirror
Achievement=After a woman is won (she can be commanded)
Ungained=Not won (must be asked)
Compleat:
Baud (or she-Bawd)=Een Hoerewaardin, koppelaarster
Glass=Spiegel
Achievement=Verrichting, daad, bedryf
Gained=Gewonnen

Topics: achievement, satisfaction

My lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you, my matter is so rash

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.2
SPEAKER: Aeneas
CONTEXT:
AENEAS
My lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you,
My matter is so rash: there is at hand
Paris your brother, and Deiphobus,
The Grecian Diomed, and our Antenor
Delivered to us; and for him forthwith,
Ere the first sacrifice, within this hour,
We must give up to Diomedes’ hand
The Lady Cressida.
TROILUS
Is it so concluded?
AENEAS
By Priam and the general state of Troy:
They are at hand and ready to effect it.
TROILUS
How my achievements mock me!
I will go meet them: and, my Lord AEneas,
We met by chance; you did not find me here.
AENEAS
Good, good, my lord; the secrets of nature
Have not more gift in taciturnity.

DUTCH:
k Heb nauwlijks tijd om u te groeten, prins,
Zoo eischt mijn zending spoed.

MORE:
Leisure=Time
Rash=Urgent
General state=Council, government
Concluded=Decided
Taciturnity=Discretion
Compleat:
To stay=Wagten
Leisure=Ledigen tyd
Rash=Voorbaarig, haastig, onbedacht, roekeloos
To conclude=Besluiten, sluiten
Taciturnity=Stilzwygendheid

Topics: resolution, dispute, success, disappointment, haste

My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred; and I myself see not the bottom of it

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.3
SPEAKER: Achilles
CONTEXT:
ACHILLES
Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?
THERSITES
No, but he’s out o’ tune thus. What music will be in
him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know
not; but, I am sure, none, unless the fiddler Apollo
get his sinews to make catlings on.
ACHILLES
Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.
THERSITES
Let me bear another to his horse; for that’s the more
capable creature.
THERSITES
I should take it to his horse, his horse is more sensible.
ACHILLES
My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred;
And I myself see not the bottom of it.
THERSITES
Would the fountain of your mind were clear again,
that I might water an ass at it! I had rather be a
tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance.

DUTCH:
Mijn geest is neev’lig als een troeb’le bron;
ik kan er zelf den bodem niet van zien.

MORE:
Fiddler Apollo=God of music and reason
Tune=Humour, temper
Catling=Cat gut strings
Capable=Intelligent
Compleat:
Catling=Een groot mes
Capable=Magtig, bekwaam, vermoogend; vatbaar, bevattelyk, ontvangbaar, ontvanklyk

Topics: vanity, concern

No marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons, you are so empty of them

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.2
SPEAKER: Helen
CONTEXT:
TROILUS
Fie, fie, my brother!
Weigh you the worth and honour of a king
So great as our dread father in a scale
Of common ounces? will you with counters sum
The past proportion of his infinite?
And buckle in a waist most fathomless
With spans and inches so diminutive
As fears and reasons? fie, for godly shame!
HELENUS
No marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons,
You are so empty of them. Should not our father
Bear the great sway of his affairs with reasons,
Because your speech hath none that tells him so?
TROILUS
You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest;
You fur your gloves with reason. Here are
your reasons:
You know an enemy intends you harm;
You know a sword employed is perilous,
And reason flies the object of all harm:
Who marvels then, when Helenus beholds
A Grecian and his sword, if he do set
The very wings of reason to his heels
And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,
Or like a star disorbed? Nay, if we talk of reason,
Let’s shut our gates and sleep: manhood and honour
Should have hare-hearts, would they but fat their thoughts
With this crammed reason: reason and respect
Make livers pale and lustihood deject.

DUTCH:
Geen wonder, dat ge op gronden bijtend schimpt,
Gij, zelf zoo arm er aan. Moet onze vader
Zijn heerschersambt vervullen zonder gronden,
Wijl gij, die dit van hem begeert, ze mist?

MORE:
Counters=Blank coins
Past proportion-Measureless
Fathomless=Unmeasureable
Span=Hand span
Bite=Inveigle
Sway=Direction
Fur your gloves=Comfort yourself
Reasons=Rationalisations
Flies=Flees
Hare=Flighty, ready to run
Crammed=Force fed
Lustihood=Energy
Compleat:
Counter=Legpenning, rekenpenningen
To bite=Byten, knaagen, snerpen, steeken, voor de gek houden
To sway=(govern) Regeeren. To sway with one=Gezach over iemand hebben
To furr=Met bont voeren
To hare=Verbaasd maaken, ontstellen
To cram with meat=Met spyze opkroppen, overlaaden

Burgersdijk notes:
Gij voert met gronden uwe handschoen. Met verstand, met omzichtigheid. Gij schroomt het harde
gevest van het zwaard aan te vatten.

Topics: value, respect, reason, status, dispute

No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord must not so stale his palm, nobly acquired

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
O Agamemnon, let it not be so!
We’ll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes
When they go from Achilles: shall the proud lord
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts, save such as do revolve
And ruminate himself, shall he be worshipped
Of that we hold an idol more than he?
No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord
Must not so stale his palm, nobly acquired;
Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,
As amply titled as Achilles is,
By going to Achilles:
That were to enlard his fat already pride
And add more coals to Cancer when he burns
With entertaining great Hyperion.
This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid,
And say in thunder ‘Achilles go to him.’

DUTCH:
Neen, deze driewerf eed’le, dapp’re vorst
Moet zoo zijn schoon verworven palm niet vlekken

MORE:
Seam=Grease
Save=Except
Revolve=Consider
Ruminate=To muse, to meditate, to ponder
Of that=By one who
Stale=Sully
Palm=Virtue, reputation
Assubjugate=Debase
Compleat:
Seam=Uitgesmolten reuzel
Revolve=Overleggen, overdenken, omwentelen, ontuimelen
To revolve a thing in one’s mind=Iets in zyn gemoed overleggen, beraamen
To ruminate upon (to consider of) a thing=Eene zaak overweegen

Burgersdijk notes:
Bij ‘t gloeiend kreeftsgesternte. Als dit Hyperion, de zon, bij zich ontvangt, komt de warmste tijd van het jaar aan voor het noordelijk halfrond.

Topics: vanity, madness, pride

Now I begin to relish thy advice; and I will give a taste of it forthwith

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
What glory our Achilles shares from Hector,
Were he not proud, we all should share with him:
But he already is too insolent;
And we were better parch in Afric sun
Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes,
Should he ‘scape Hector fair: if he were foiled,
Why then, we did our main opinion crush
In taint of our best man. No, make a lottery;
And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw
The sort to fight with Hector: among ourselves
Give him allowance for the better man;
For that will physic the great Myrmidon
Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall
His crest that prouder than blue Iris bends.
If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off,
We’ll dress him up in voices: if he fail,
Yet go we under our opinion still
That we have better men. But, hit or miss,
Our project’s life this shape of sense assumes:
Ajax employed plucks down Achilles’ plumes.
NESTOR
Ulysses,
Now I begin to relish thy advice;
And I will give a taste of it forthwith
To Agamemnon: go we to him straight.
Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone
Must tarre the mastiffs on, as ’twere their bone.

DUTCH:
Uw raad begint, Ulysses, mij te smaken;
En onverwijld wil ik dien Agamemnon
Te proeven geven;

MORE:
Proverb: Two curs shall tame (bite) each other
Proverb: Hit or miss

Salt=Bitter
Opinion=Reputation
Allowance=Acknowledgment
Taint of=Discrediting
Broils in=Is excited by
Dress up in voices=Sing the praises of
Tarre on=Incite
Compleat:
Opinion=Goeddunken, meening, gevoelen, waan
Allowance=Inschikkelykheid, toegeeflykheid
To attaint=Overtuigen van misdaad, schuldig verlaaren, betichten’ bevlekken, bederf aanzetten
Broil=Oproer, beroerte, gewoel

Topics: proverbs and idioms, still in use, pride, manipulation, advantage/benefit, conspiracy

O, be persuaded! do not count it holy to hurt by being just

DUTCH:
0, laat u raden; ‘t is niet vroom, te kwetsen
Uit lout’re zucht tot recht; ‘t ware even lof lijk ,
Om veel te geven, and’ren te berooven,
En door een zucht tot weldoen, dief te zijn.

MORE:
Proverb: Either live or die with honour

Topics: proverbs and idioms, promise, debt/obligation

O, like a book of sport thou’lt read me o’er; but there’s more in me than thou understand’st

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.6
SPEAKER: Hector
CONTEXT:
HECTOR
O, like a book of sport thou’lt read me o’er;
But there’s more in me than thou understand’st.
Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?
ACHILLES
Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his body
Shall I destroy him? whether there, or there, or there?
That I may give the local wound a name
And make distinct the very breach whereout
Hector’s great spirit flew: answer me, heavens!

DUTCH:
O, gij doorbladert me als een boek tot scherts;
Doch er is meer in mij dan gij begrijpt.
Wat drukt gij zoo mij met uw blik ter ne r?

MORE:
Book of sport=Hunting manual
Distinct=Separate, different positions/functions
Compleat:
Distinct=Onderscheyden, afzonderlyk, duydelyk

Topics: communication, understanding, dispute

O, when degree is shaked, which is the ladder to all high designs, then enterprise is sick!

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
(…) O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides,
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.
And this neglection of degree it is
That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general’s disdained
By him one step below, he by the next,
That next by him beneath; so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation:
And ’tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.

DUTCH:
O, is de rang geschokt,
Die ladder is naar elk verheven doel,
Dan kwijnt elke onderneming.

MORE:
Design=A work in hand, enterprise, cause
Degrees in schools=Academic standing
Brotherhoods=Guilds
Dividable=Dividing
Laurels=Emblem of exellence
Oppugnancy=Opposition
Sop=Lump of bread soaked in wine
Imbecility=Feebleness (not of mind)
Rude=Violent
Jar=Dispute, conflict
Includes itself in=Is subsumed by
Bloodless=Pallid
Emulation=Envy, jealousy
On foot=Upright
Compleat:
Design=Opzet, voorneemen, oogmerk, aanslag, toeleg, ontwerp
Brotherhood=Broederschap
Crowned with a laurel=Met laurier bekranst, gelaurierd
To oppugne=Bestryden, bevechten, tegenstreeven
Oppugnation=Bestryding, bevechting
A wine sop=Een wynsopje
Imbecility=Zwaklykheid, zwakheid
Rude=Ruuw, groof, onbehouwen, plomp, onbeschaafd
Jar=Krakkeelen, twisten, harrewarren, oneens zyn, kyven
Emulation=Haayver, volgzucht, afgunst

Topics: status, order/society, nature, respect, justice

Omission to do what is necessary seals a commission to a blank of danger

DUTCH:
Wie onmacht toont, niet handelt als dit moet,
Geeft aan ‘t gevaar een volmacht om te schaden;

Topics: conflict, rivalry, reputation, caution

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
(…) For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour 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
Than 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.

DUTCH:
Eén trek maakt heel de wereld saamverwant:
Eenstemmig prijst men nieuwgeboren pronk,
Ofschoon gemaakt, vervormd van oude zaken;
En heeft voor stof, met klatergoud bedekt,
Meer lof veil dan voor overstoven goud.

MORE:
Touch of nature=Natural trait
Gawds=Trivia
Laud=Praise
Overtop=Surpass
Emulous=Envying, rivalry
Faction=Taking sides
Compleat:
Gawd=Wisje-wasjes, beuzelingen
To laud=Looven, pryzen
Over-top=Te boven gaan, overschryden
Emulous=Naayverig, nydig
Faction=Samenrotting, saamenspanning, oproerige party, rot, aanhang, partyschap, verdeeldheid

Topics: nature, time, fashion/trends, vanity

Pardon me this brag; his insolence draws folly from my lips

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.5
SPEAKER: Hector
CONTEXT:
HECTOR
It would discredit the blest gods, proud man,
To answer such a question: stand again:
Think’st thou to catch my life so pleasantly
As to prenominate in nice conjecture
Where thou wilt hit me dead?
ACHILLES
I tell thee, yea.
HECTOR
Wert thou an oracle to tell me so,
Ied not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well;
For I’ll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there;
But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm,
I’ll kill thee every where, yea, o’er and o’er.
You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag;
His insolence draws folly from my lips;
But I’ll endeavour deeds to match these words,
Or may I never—
AJAX
Do not chafe thee, cousin:
And you, Achilles, let these threats alone,
Till accident or purpose bring you to’t:
You may have every day enough of Hector
If you have stomach; the general state, I fear,
Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.

DUTCH:
Vergeeft mij, wijze Grieken, dat ik poch;
Zijn hoogmoed lokt die dwaasheid van mijn lippen;
Maar ‘k laat mijn daden strooken met mijn woord,

MORE:
Pleasantly=Like a game
Catch=Charm
Prenominate=Name
Nice=Precise
Stithied=Forged (also stythied)
Chafe=Get irritated, fret
Stomach=Appetite
Compleat:
Pleasantly=Op een vermaakelyke wyze
Catch=Vatten, vangen, opvangen, grypen, betrappen
Nice=Keurig, vies
Stithy=een Aambeeld als ook een zekere quaal …
To chafe=Verhitten, tot toorn ontsteeken, verhit zyn van gramschap, woeden
Stomach=Trek (appetite); hart (spirit)

Topics: honour, revenge, anger

Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds! Fools on both sides!

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.1
SPEAKER: Troilus
CONTEXT:
TROILUS
Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds!
Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starved a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus,—O gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he’s as tetchy to be wooed to woo.
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne’s love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium and where she resides,
Let it be called the wild and wandering flood,
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark.

DUTCH:
Stil, haat’lijk boos geraas! stil, ruwe klanken!
Gij narren aan weerszijde! 0, Helena
Moet schoon zijn, als gij daag’lijks met uw bloed
Haar dus blanket! Neen, hiervoor vecht ik niet;
Die reden is te armzalig voor mijn zwaard.

MORE:
Fair=A pale blushing face was considered beautiful
Argument=Cause
Starved=Emaciated, meagre
Subject=Reason
Tetchy=Irritable
Wooed=Persuaded
Apollo=God of poetry
Ilium=Priam’s palace (or Troy the city)
Convoy=Conveyance
Bark=Small ship
Compleat:
Fair=Schoon, braaf, fraai, oprecht
Argument=Bewys, bewysreden, dringreden; kort begrip der zaak die te bewyzen staat; inhoud
To starve=Sterven
Subject=Onderwerp
To woo=Vryen; bidden
To convoy=Geleiden, uitgeley doen
Bark=Scheepje

Burgersdijk notes:
Wat tusschen ons paleis enz. Er staat eigenlijk: “wat tusschen ons Ilium is en waar zij woont”. Met Ilium wordt het paleis van Priamus en de zijnen genoemd, Troje is de stad zelf. Caxton zegt: “In the most open place of the city, upon a rock, the king Priamus did build his rich palace, which was named Ilion: that was one of the richest palaces and the strongest that ever was in all the world.”

Topics: dispute, understanding, persuasion

Pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than adders to the voice of any true decision

DUTCH:
The reasons you allege do more conduce
To the hot passion of distempered blood
Than to make up a free determination
‘Twixt right and wrong, for pleasure and revenge
Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
Of any true decision.

MORE:
Proverb: Give everyone his due
Proverb: As deaf as an adder

To gloze=Expand, expound. Veil with specious comments (OED)
Glozes=Pretentious talk
Conduce=Contribute, cite
Affection=Emotion; partiality
Partial=Prejudiced
Distempered=Ill-humoured; deranged
Benumbed=Dulled, inured
Refractory=Unmanageable
Compleat:
To gloze=Vleijen, flikflooijen
To conduce=Vorderlyk zyn, dienstig zyn, baaten
Affection=Toegeneegenheid, aandoening
Partial=Eenzydig, partydig
Distempered=Niet wel te pas, kwaalyk gesteld, uit zyn schik
To benum=Verstyven
Refractory=Wederspannig

Burgersdijk notes:
Door Aristoteles. Nu Shakespeare een Griekschen wijsgeer wil vermelden, kiest hij een algemeen bekenden, zonder te vragen, of deze niet vele eeuwen na den Trojaanschen oorlog leefde en of hij inderdaad de jeugd onvatbaar heeft genoemd voor de beoefening der moraal -philosophie.
Zijn doover nog dan slangen. Dat slangen voor doof gehouden werden, blijkt ook uit 2 K. Hendrik IV, en uit Sonnet CXII.

Topics: proverbs and idioms, law/legal, judgment, debt/obligation

Praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.2
SPEAKER: Troilus
CONTEXT:
TROILUS
Nothing, but our undertakings; when we vow to weep
seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking
it harder for our mistress to devise imposition
enough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed.
This is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the will
is infinite and the execution confined, that the
desire is boundless and the act a slave to limit.
CRESSIDA
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 often and
discharging less than the tenth part of one. They
that have the voice of lions and the act of hares,
are they not monsters?
TROILUS
Are there such? such are not we: praise us as we
are tasted, allow us as we prove; our head shall go
bare till merit crown it: no perfection in reversion
shall have a praise in present: we will not name
desert before his birth, and, being born, his addition
shall be humble. Few words to fair faith: Troilus
shall be such to Cressid as what envy can say worst
shall be a mock for his truth, and what truth can
speak truest not truer than Troilus.

DUTCH:
Zijn er zulke wezens? Wij behooren daar niet toe.
Schat ons naarmate wij smaken; beoordeel ons naar wat
wij blijken te zijn; ons hoofd blijve onbedekt, tot verdienste het kroont.

MORE:

Proverb: Where many words are, the truth goes by
Proverb: Few words to fair faith

Undertakings=Promises
Tasted=Tried and tested
Allow=Praise
Reversion=By right of succession
Desert=Merit
Addition=Title
To fair faith=To swear loyalty
Envy can say worst=The most malicious thing envy can say
Compleat:
To undertake for one=Voor iemand borg staan
To allow=Toestaan, goedkeuren, veroorloven, toeleggen, inschikken
Reversion=Wegschenking; wedervervalling van eenig bezit op den voorigen eigenaar of zyne erven
Desert=Verdienste
Addition=Bydoening, byvoegsel
Addition=Bydoening, byvoegsel
Envy=Nyd, afgunst

Burgersdijk notes:
Als wij de gelofte doen enz. In de ridderromans worden door de ridders de geloften gedaan der onmogelijkste waagstukken ter eere der schoonen.

Topics: proverbs and idioms, truth, promise

Prizes of accident as oft as merit

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.3
SPEAKER: Achilles
CONTEXT:
ACHILLES
What, am I poor of late?
‘Tis certain, greatness, once fall’n out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too: what the declined is
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings but to the summer,
And not a man, for being simply man,
Hath any honour, but honour for those honours
That are without him, as place, riches, favour,
Prizes of accident as oft as merit:
Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that leaned on them as slippery too,
Do one pluck down another and together
Die in the fall. But ’tis not so with me:
Fortune and I are friends: I do enjoy
At ample point all that I did possess,
Save these men’s looks; who do, methinks, find out
Something not worth in me such rich beholding
As they have often given. Here is Ulysses;
I’ll interrupt his reading.
How now Ulysses!

DUTCH:
Eer valt hem slechts ten deel voor eenige eer,
Die buiten hem is: rijkdom, hofgunst, rang, —
Des toevals gaaf zoo vaak als loon van kloekheid; —
En vallen deze, zij die glibb’rig staan,
Waartegen vriendschap even glibb’rig leunt,
Dan sleept de een de’ ander mede, en alles valt
En sterft te zaâm.

MORE:
Mealy=Powdery
Without=Outside
Accident=By chance
Slippery=Not on a firm footing
Beholding=Indebtedness, obligation
Compleat:
Mealy=Meelig
Without=Buyten
Accident=Een toeval, quaal, aankleefsel
Slippery=Slibberig, glipperig, glad
Beholding, beholden=Gehouden, verplicht, verschuldigt

Topics: reputation, ruin, friendship, loyalty

So do all men unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.2
SPEAKER: Cressida
CONTEXT:
ALEXANDER
They say he is a very man per se,
And stands alone.
CRESSIDA
So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no
legs.
ALEXANDER
This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their
particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion,
churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man
into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his
valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with
discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he
hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint but he
carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without
cause, and merry against the hair: he hath the
joints of every thing, but everything so out of joint
that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use,
or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

DUTCH:
Dat doen alle mannen, als zij niet beschonken, ziek
of zonder beenen zijn.

MORE:
Proverb: It goes against the hair

Topics: proverbs and idioms, leadership, skill/talent, dignity

So rich advantage of a promised glory as smiles upon the forehead of this action

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.2
SPEAKER: Troilus
CONTEXT:
TROILUS
Why, there you touched the life of our design:
Were it not glory that we more affected
Than the performance of our heaving spleens,
I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood
Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,
She is a theme of honour and renown,
A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,
Whose present courage may beat down our foes,
And fame in time to come canonize us;
For, I presume, brave Hector would not lose
So rich advantage of a promised glory
As smiles upon the forehead of this action
For the wide world’s revenue.

DUTCH:
Want, wis, de dapp’re Hector geeft een oogst,
Zoo rijk, niet prijs van toegezegde glorie,
Als op het voorhoofd dezes strijds hem wenkt,
Voor alle wereldsch goud.

MORE:
Life=Essence, substance
Design=A work in hand, enterprise, cause
Affected=Desired
Performance=Outward display
Heaving spleens=Spite and resentment
Magnanimous=Ambitous, courageous
Canonize=Glorify
Forehead=(Fig.) Countenance
Compleat:
Design=Opzet, voorneemen, oogmerk, aanslag, toeleg, ontwerp
Affect=Liefde toedragen, ter harte gaan, beminnen
Performance=Volbrenging, betrachting
Magnanimous=Grootmoedig, groothartig, kloekmoedig
To canonise=Heiligen, inwyen
Fore-head=Aangezigt

Topics: evidence, achievement, reputation

Speaking in deeds and deedless in his tongue

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.5
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
The youngest son of Priam, a true knight,
Not yet mature, yet matchless, firm of word,
Speaking in deeds and deedless in his tongue;
Not soon provoked nor being provoked soon calmed:
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,
Nor dignifies an impure thought with breath;
Manly as Hector, but more dangerous;
For Hector in his blaze of wrath subscribes
To tender objects, but he in heat of action
Is more vindicative than jealous love:
They call him Troilus, and on him erect
A second hope, as fairly built as Hector.
Thus says AEneas; one that knows the youth
Even to his inches, and with private soul
Did in great Ilion thus translate him to me.

DUTCH:
De jongste zoon van Priamus: echt ridder;
Schoon niet gerijpt , reeds roemrijk; vast van woord,
Met daden sprekend, daad’loos met de tong;
Niet ras vergramd; vergramd, niet ras bevredigd;

MORE:
Matchless=Unequalled
Deedless in his tongue=Humble, not boastful
Soon=Readily
Free=Generous
Impair=Unworthy
Subscribes=Relents, yields
Vindicative=Vindictive
Even to his inches=In great detail
Private soul=In confidence
Translate=Explain
Compleat:
Matchless=Zonder weerga, gaadeloos
Soon=Haast, vroeg, dra
Free=Vry, openhartig
Impair=Verergeren, besnoeijen, verminderen, verzwakken, verkleynen
Subscribe=Onderschryven
Vindictive=Wraakzuchtig

Topics: honour, revenge

Take but degree away, untune that string, and, hark, what discord follows!

DUTCH:
O neemt den rang slechts weg, ontspant die snaar,
En hoort, wat wanklank!

MORE:
Said to be one of President John Adams’ favourite quotes.

Observance=Respect to
Apply=Interpret
Reproof of chance=Reproach from events
Bauble=Insignificant
Boreas=North wind
Thetis=Sea goddess
Moist elements=Water and air
Perseus’ horse=Pegasus, the winged horse
Saucy=Impertinent
But even=Just
Toast=Piece of toast that was floated in wine
Knees=Knee timber, hard wood used for shipbuilding
Compleat:
Observance=Gedienstigheyd, eerbiedigheyd, opmerking, waarneeming
Apply=Toepassen
Reproof=Bestraffing, berisping
Bauble=Spulletje, grol
Saucy=Stout, onbeschaamd, baldaadig
The knees of a ship=De Knies of zystukken van een schip

Topics: status, order/society, nature, respect, justice

Take the instant way; for honour travels in a strait so narrow, where one but goes abreast

DUTCH:
Treed immer voort, terstond,
Want de eere wandelt op een pad, welks smalte
Voor en slechts ruimte heeft.

MORE:
Time was originally personified as a money collector for Forgetfulness, based on an old saying

Burgersdijk notes
Ja, Mars tot strijden dreef. Hiervan maakt Homerus gewag.

Topics: honesty, value, integrity, respect, reputation

That no man is the lord of any thing, though in and of him there be much consisting, till he communicate his parts to others

DUTCH:
Die, dit ontwikk’lend, hier uitdrukk’lijk leert,
Dat niemand heer en meester is van iets, —
Hoe veel hij ook bezitte en in zich hebbe, —
Eer hij zijn gaven and’ren mededeelt;

Topics: communication, persuasion, reputation, value, appearance, merit

The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy:
his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.
PATROCLUS
Achilles bids me say, he is much sorry,
If any thing more than your sport and pleasure
Did move your greatness and this noble state
To call upon him; he hopes it is no other
But for your health and your digestion sake,
And after-dinner’s breath.

DUTCH:
De olifant heeft gewrichten, maar niet voor beleefdheid;
zijn beenen zijn beenen voor noodzakelijkheid, maar
niet voor buigingen.

MORE:
None for courtesy=Elephants supposedly had no knee joints and therefore could not bow
Flexure=Bending
Sport=Exercise
State=Company
Breath=Exercise
Compleat:
Flexure=Buiging
Sport=Spel, kortwyl
Breath=Luchtschepping

Topics: civility, order/society, respect

The end crowns all

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.6
SPEAKER: Hector
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue:
My prophecy is but half his journey yet;
For yonder walls, that pertly front your town,
Yond towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,
Must kiss their own feet.
HECTOR
I must not believe you:
There they stand yet, and modestly I think,
The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost
A drop of Grecian blood: the end crowns all,
And that old common arbitrator, Time,
Will one day end it.

DUTCH:
Het einde kroont;
En wis zal eens de Tijd, die ‘t al beslecht,
Het einde brengen.

MORE:
Proverb: The end crowns (tries) all
Proverb: Time tries all things

Foretold=Predicted
Half his journey=Half fulfilled
Pertly=Provocatively
Front=Fortify
Buss=Kiss
Common arbitrator=Judge of everything
Compleat:
Foregold=Voorzegd, voorzeyd
Pert=Wakker, vrypostig, moedig, vol vuurs
Front=(army) Voorste gelederen; (building) voorgevel

Topics: proverbs and idioms, time, age/experience

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre observe degree, priority, and place

DUTCH:
Als zich rang vermomt,
Schijnt hoog en laag door ‘t masker even hoog.
De hemel zelf, de sterren en dit centrum,
Slaan acht op rang en meerderheid en plaats
In stand, in loop, verhouding, jaartij, vorm,
In ambt, gewoonten, al wat orde heet;

MORE:
His basis=Its foundation
Down=Destroyed
Instances=Causes
Speciality=Obligations (mutual between ruler and subject)
Degree=Rank
Vizarded=Concealed, masked
Course=Trajectory
Proportion=Symmetry
Sphered=In its correct orbit
Medicinable=Curative
Ill aspects=Bad astrological influence; poorly appearance
Post=Hasten
Compleat:
Instance=Een voorval, voorbeeld, exempel; aandringing, aanhouding; blyk
Speciality=Een verbondschrift, of schuldbekentenis; als ook een al te gemeenzaame kennis
Degree=Een graad, trap
He did rise by degrees=Hy wierd trapswyze bevordert; The highest degree=De hoogste trap
Vizard=Een momaanzigt, mombakkus, masker
Course (way or means)=Wegen of middelen
Proportion=Evenredigheid, regelmaat
Sphere=Omloops-kring
That is out of his sphere=Dat is buiten zyne kreits
Aspect=Stargezigt; gezigt, gelaat, aanschouw
Post (expeditious way of travelling)=Post, een schielyke manier van reizen

Topics: law/legal, order/society, good and bad, nature

The purpose is perspicuous even as substance, whose grossness little characters sum up

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: Nestor
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
This challenge that the gallant Hector sends,
However it is spread in general name,
Relates in purpose only to Achilles.
NESTOR
The purpose is perspicuous even as substance,
Whose grossness little characters sum up:
And, in the publication, make no strain,
But that Achilles, were his brain as barren
As banks of Libya,—though, Apollo knows,
‘Tis dry enough,—will, with great speed of judgment,
Ay, with celerity, find Hector’s purpose
Pointing on him.
ULYSSES
And wake him to the answer, think you?

DUTCH:
Het doel is even kenn’lijk, als een uitkomst,
Uit tal van kleine cijfers opgesomd; (…)

MORE:
Perspicuous=Apparent, obvious
Substance=Matter
Publication=Announcement
No strain=No doubt
Dry=Unimaginative
Pointing on=Focuses on
Compleat:
Perspicuous=Klaar, duidelyk
Substance=Stoffe
Publication=Afkondiging, bekendmaaking, gemeenmaaking
A strain of law=Onverdiende gunst, in rechten in geen gevolg te trekken
To strain=Inspannen; dwingen, geweld aandoen
Dry (reserved)=Agterhoudend
Pointing=Gericht; Wyzing, spitsmaaking

Topics: dispute, rivalry, purpose

The raven chides blackness

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
AJAX
If I go to him, with my armed fist I’ll pash him o’er
the face.
AGAMEMNON
O, no, you shall not go.
AJAX
An a’ be proud with me, I’ll pheeze his pride:
Let me go to him.
ULYSSES
Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.
AJAX
A paltry, insolent fellow!
NESTOR
How he describes himself!
AJAX
Can he not be sociable?
ULYSSES
The raven chides blackness.
AJAX
I’ll let his humour’s blood.

DUTCH:
Daar scheldt een raaf het zwartzijn uit!

MORE:
Proverb: The raven chides blackness

Pash=Smash
Feeze or pheeze=Sort out
Let his humour’s blood=Ref to medicinal blood-letting
Compleat:
To pash=Te pletteren slaan, kneuzen, verbryzelen
To let blood=Ader laaten, laaten

Topics: proverbs and idioms, pride

The reasons you allege do more conduce to the hot passion of distempered blood than to make up a free determination ’twixt right and wrong

DUTCH:
De gronden, die gij bijbrengt, voeren meer
Tot heete opbruising van ontstoken bloed,
Dan tot het onbevangen, juist erkennen
Van recht en onrecht.

MORE:
Proverb: Give everyone his due
Proverb: As deaf as an adder

Topics: proverbs and idioms, law/legal, judgment, debt/obligation, good and bad

The worthiness of praise distains his worth, if that the praised himself bring the praise forth

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: Aeneas
CONTEXT:
AENEAS
Ay;
I ask, that I might waken reverence,
And bid the cheek be ready with a blush
Modest as morning when she coldly eyes
The youthful Phoebus:
Which is that god in office, guiding men?
Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?
AGAMEMNON
This Trojan scorns us; or the men of Troy
Are ceremonious courtiers.
AENEAS
Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarmed,
As bending angels; that’s their fame in peace:
But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls,
Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and,
Jove’s accord,
Nothing so full of heart. But peace, Aeneas,
Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips!
The worthiness of praise distains his worth,
If that the praised himself bring the praise forth:
But what the repining enemy commends,
That breath fame blows; that praise, sole sure,
transcends.

DUTCH:
Wees stil, Trojaan! den vinger op den mond!
De lof verliest de waarde, die hij heeft,
Zoo de gepreez’ne zelf den lof zich geeft;
Doch zoo de vijand prijzen moet, diens woord
Verbreidt de faam; ‘t leeft, vlekk’loos rein, steeds voort.

MORE:
Proverb: Lay thy finger on thy lips

Phoebus=Apollo, the sun God
Free=Generous
Bending=Ministering
Would seem=Wish to appear
Galls=Spirit to resist
Action=Military action
Distains=Stains
Repining=Grudging
Compleat:
Free=Vry, openhartig
To gall=’t Vel afschuuren, smarten
To gall the enemy=Den vyand benaauwen
Action=Een daad, handeling, rechtzaak, gevecht
Distain=Bevlekken, besmetten, bezwalken
To repine=Moeijelyk zyn, misnoegd weezen, berouw hebben; benyden

Topics: proverbs and idioms, civility, respect, reputation

The wound of peace is surety, surety secure

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.2
SPEAKER: Hector
CONTEXT:
HECTOR
Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I
As far as toucheth my particular,
Yet, dread Priam,
There is no lady of more softer bowels,
More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,
More ready to cry out ‘Who knows what follows?’
Than Hector is: the wound of peace is surety,
Surety secure; but modest doubt is called
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To the bottom of the worst. Let Helen go:
Since the first sword was drawn about this question,
Every tithe soul, ‘mongst many thousand dimes,
Hath been as dear as Helen; I mean, of ours:
If we have lost so many tenths of ours,
To guard a thing not ours nor worth to us,
Had it our name, the value of one ten,
What merit’s in that reason which denies
The yielding of her up?

DUTCH:
Zorgelooze zekerheid
Is vredes wonde; maar bezonnen twijfel
Des wijzen baak, de vlaswiek, die het diepst
Der wonde peilt.

MORE:
Proverb: The way to be safe is never to be secure
Proverb: He that is secure is not safe

My particular=Me personally
Softer bowels=More compassion
Spongy to suck in=Absorbent
Surety=Over-confidence, feeling of safety
Doubt=Apprehension
Tent=Surgical probe
Tithe=Tenth (reference to taxation)
Compleat:
Particular=Byzonder, zonderling, byzonderheid
Spungy=Sponsachtig, voos
Surety=Borg, vastigheyd
Doubt=Twyffel
Tent=Tentyzer
Tithe=Tiende; To gather tithes=Tienden inzamelen

Topics: proverbs and idioms, security, adversity

Their fraction is more our wish than their faction

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.3
SPEAKER: Nestor
CONTEXT:
NESTOR
Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his
argument.
ULYSSES
No, you see, he is his argument that has his
argument, Achilles.
NESTOR
All the better; their fraction is more our wish than
their faction: but it was a strong composure a fool
could disunite.
ULYSSES
The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily
untie. Here comes Patroclus.

DUTCH:
Des te beter; hun tweedracht is meer onze wensch
dan hun eendracht; maar dat was een sterke band, dien
een nar verbreken kon!

MORE:
Matter=Substance, something to say
He is his argument that has his argument=The Achillean argument (endless, insuperable). Subject becomes object and the reverse.
Argument=Theme, subject
Fraction=Division
Faction=Union, alliance
Amity=Understanding, friendship
Compleat:
Matter=Stoffe, zaak, oorzaak
Argument=Bewys, bewysreden, dringreden; kort begrip der zaak die te bewyzen staat; inhoud
Fraction=Breeking; (quarrel)=Krakeel
Faction=Samenrotting, saamenspanning, oproerige party, rot, aanhang, partyschap, verdeeldheid
Amity=Vrindschap, vreede, eendracht

Topics: leadership, status, authority, manipulation

Then every thing includes itself in power, power into will, will into appetite; and appetite, an universal wolf.

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
And the great Hector’s sword had lacked a master,
But for these instances.
The specialty of rule hath been neglected:
And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive
To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
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;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans cheque to good and bad: but when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!
Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides,
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.
And this neglection of degree it is
That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general’s disdained
By him one step below, he by the next,
That next by him beneath; so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation:
And ’tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.

DUTCH:
t Gezag werd hier verwaarloosd; ziet, zoovele
Hier holle Grieksche tenten staan, zoovele
Partijen zijn er, even hol. En zoo
De veldheer niet den bijenstok gelijk is,
Waar elk inzaam’laar ‘t zijne brengt, hoe kan men
Ooit honig wachten?

Topics: law/legal, justice, respect, order/society, nature, learning/education

There is a mystery—with whom relation durst never meddle—in the soul of state

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
Is that a wonder?
The providence that’s in a watchful state
Knows almost every grain of Plutus’ gold,
Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps,
Keeps place with thought and almost, like the gods,
Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
There is a mystery—with whom relation
Durst never meddle—in the soul of state;
Which hath an operation more divine
Than breath or pen can give expressure to:
All the commerce that you have had with Troy
As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;
And better would it fit Achilles much
To throw down Hector than Polyxena:
But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,
When fame shall in our islands sound her trump,
And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing,
‘Great Hector’s sister did Achilles win,
But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.’
Farewell, my lord: I as your lover speak;
The fool slides o’er the ice that you should break.

DUTCH:
Een wond’re kracht, wier wezen geen bericht
Ooit heeft ontvouwd, woont in de ziel des staats;

MORE:
Providence=Foresight
Watchful=Alert
State=Government
Uncomprehensive=Unimaginable
Dumb cradles=Before they are spoken
Meddle=Interfere
Give expressure to=Express
Commerce=Dealings
Compleat:
Providence=(wariness or foresight) Voorzigtigheid, wysheid
Comprehensive=Begrypende
Meddle=Bemoeijen, moeijen
Commerce=Koophandel; gemeenschap, onderhandeling, ommegang

Topics: authority, merit

There is seen the baby figure of the giant mass of things to come at large

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: Nestor
CONTEXT:
NESTOR
Yes, ’tis most meet: whom may you else oppose,
That can from Hector bring his honour off,
If not Achilles? Though’t be a sportful combat,
Yet in the trial much opinion dwells;
For here the Trojans taste our dear’st repute
With their finest palate: and trust to me, Ulysses,
Our imputation shall be oddly poised
In this wild action; for the success,
Although particular, shall give a scantling
Of good or bad unto the general;
And in such indexes, although small pricks
To their subsequent volumes, there is seen
The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come at large. It is supposed
He that meets Hector issues from our choice
And choice, being mutual act of all our souls,
Makes merit her election, and doth boil,
As ’twere from us all, a man distilled
Out of our virtues; who miscarrying,
What heart receives from hence the conquering part,
To steel a strong opinion to themselves?
Which entertained, limbs are his instruments,
In no less working than are swords and bows
Directive by the limbs.

DUTCH:
En zulk een index, schoon een stip, een niets
Bij ‘t boek, dat volgt, laat toch vooruit, zoo meent men,
In kindsgestalte ‘t reuzenlijf der dingen,
Die komen zullen, zien.

MORE:
Meet=Appropriate
Wild=Reckless
Success=Result
Particular=Relating to a single person
Scantling=Sample, sketchy
Indexes=Indications
Pricks=Indications
Volumes=Books; quantities
Miscarrying=If unsuccessful
Entertained=If established
Working=Effective
Compleat:
Meet=Dienstig, bequaam, gevoeglyk
Wild=Buitenspoorig, onbetaamelyk
Success=Uitkomst, hetzij goed of kwaad
Particular=Byzonder, zonderling, byzonderheid
Scantling=(little piece) Een klein brokje, stukje
Index=Een wyzer, bladwyzer
Prick=Prikkel
Volume=Boek, boekdeel, band
Miscarry=Mislukken, kwaalyk uitvallen
To entertain an opinion=Een stelling, gevoelen aanneemen; koesteren; gelooven of voorstaan
Working=Werkende

Topics: dispute, rivalry, success, leadership, loyalty

They say he is a very man per se, and stands alone

DUTCH:
Nu, die man is, zoo zegt men, zonder weêrgâ;
Hij staat alleen.

MORE:
Proverb: It goes against the hair

Topics: proverbs and idioms, leadership, skill/talent, dignity

They tax our policy, and call it cowardice

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
They tax our policy, and call it cowardice,
Count wisdom as no member of the war,
Forestall prescience, and esteem no act
But that of hand: the still and mental parts,
That do contrive how many hands shall strike,
When fitness calls them on, and know by measure
Of their observant toil the enemies’ weight,—
Why, this hath not a finger’s dignity:
They call this bed-work, mappery, closet-war;
So that the ram that batters down the wall,
For the great swing and rudeness of his poise,
They place before his hand that made the engine,
Or those that with the fineness of their souls
By reason guide his execution.

DUTCH:
Zij reek’nen onze omzichtigheid voor lafheid;
Bij hen is wijsheid niet in tel voor de’ oorlog,
Bedachtzaamheid verdacht, en niets in aanzien
Dan ‘t werk der hand.

MORE:
Tax=Criticise
Member=Participant
Forestall=Hinder
Fitness=Appropriate chances
Weight=Power
Swing=Impetus
Rudeness=Violence
Poise=Weight
Engine=Machinery
Fineness=Astuteness
Compleat:
To tax=Beschuldigen
Forestall=Voor-inneemen, onderscheppen, verrassen, voor-opkoopen
Fitness=Bequaamheid
Weight (importance, consequence)=Gewigt, belang
Rudeness=Ruuwheyd, onbehouwenheyd, plompheyd
Poise=Weegen, wikken
Engine=Een konstwerk, gereedschap, werktuig; Een list, konstgreep
Fineness=Mooiheyd, mooite, fynte

Topics: preparation, plans/intentions, dignity

Things small as nothing, for request’s sake only, he makes important

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
Things small as nothing, for request’s sake only,
He makes important: possessed he is with greatness,
And speaks not to himself but with a pride
That quarrels at self-breath: imagined worth
Holds in his blood such swoln and hot discourse
That ‘twixt his mental and his active parts
Kingdomed Achilles in commotion rages
And batters down himself: what should I say?
He is so plaguy proud that the death-tokens of it
Cry ‘No recovery.’

DUTCH:
Iets klein als niets, zoodra dit hem gevraagd wordt,
Maakt hij gewichtig. Grootheid is zijn duivel;

MORE:
For request’s sake only=Only because they were asked
Possessed=As in by the devil
Self-breath=Speaking to himself
Commotion=Rebellion
Plaguy=Insufferably, sickeningly
Tokens=Indications, symptoms
Compleat:
Sake=Wille. For brevity’s sake=Om kortheids wille
Possessed=Bezeten zijn
Breath=Speech, i.e. pleading
Commotion=Beweeging, beroerte, oproer, oploop
Plaguy=Plaagachtig
Token=Teken, getuigenis; een geschenkje dat men iemand tot een gedachtenis geeft

Topics: vanity, madness, pride

Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.2
SPEAKER: Cressida
CONTEXT:
CRESSIDA
Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love’s full sacrifice,
He offers in another’s enterprise;
But more in Troilus thousand fold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be;
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.
That she beloved knows nought that knows not this:
Men prize the thing ungained more than it is:
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue.
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:
Achievement is command; ungained, beseech:
Then though my heart’s content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear

DUTCH:
Bezit verzaadt, de vreugd is in ‘t bejagen

Topics: achievement, satisfaction

This chaos, when degree is suffocate, follows the choking.

DUTCH:

Wordt elke rang verwurgd, dan volgt die chaos
Op dezen moord.
En deez’ miskenning is ‘t van al wat rang heet,
Die, als zij streeft omhoog te klimmen, telkens
Een stap teruggaat.

Topics: law/legal, justice, respect, order/society, nature, learning/education

Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.1
SPEAKER: Thersites
CONTEXT:
THERSITES
Ay, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no
more brain than I have in mine elbows; an assinego
may tutor thee: thou scurvy-valiant ass! thou art
here but to thrash Trojans; and thou art bought and
sold among those of any wit, like a barbarian slave.
If thou use to beat me, I will begin at thy heel, and
tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no
bowels, thou!
AJAX
You dog!
THERSITES
You scurvy lord!
AJAX
You cur!
THERSITES
Mars his idiot! do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do.

DUTCH:
Ja ja, goed zoo, goed zoo, gij groote heer met afgekookten
geest! Gij hebt niet meer hersens, dan ik in
mijn elboog heb; een molenaarsezel kon uw leermeester
wel zijn, gij schurftig-dappere ezel!

MORE:
Proverb: To be bought and sold
Proverb: He has more wit in his head than you in both your shoulders

Assinego (also asnico)=Donkey
Bought and sold=Manipulated
Use=Continue
By inches=Inch by inch

Topics: proverbs and idioms, still in use, conflict, insult

Tis like he’ll question me why such unplausive eyes are bent on him

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.3
SPEAKER: Ulysses
CONTEXT:
ULYSSES
Achilles stands i’ the entrance of his tent:
Please it our general to pass strangely by him,
As if he were forgot; and, princes all,
Lay negligent and loose regard upon him:
I will come last. ‘Tis like he’ll question me
Why such unplausive eyes are bent on him:
If so, I have derision medicinable,
To use between your strangeness and his pride,
Which his own will shall have desire to drink:
It may be good: pride hath no other glass
To show itself but pride, for supple knees
Feed arrogance and are the proud man’s fees.

DUTCH:
Ik kom het laatst. Waarschijnlijk vraagt hij mij,
Wat de oorzaak is van die misnoegde blikken;

MORE:
Proverb: To sound one’s own trumpet

Strangely=Like a stranger
Loose=Casual
Unplausive=Disapproving
Derision=Scorn
Compleat:
Strangely=Misselyk, wonderlyk; To look strange upon one=Iemand met geen goed oog aanzien
Plausible=Toejuichelyk, aangenaam, bevallig, pryslyk, schoonschynend
Derision=Uitlaching, belaching, bespotting

Topics: proverbs and idioms

To make a recordation to my soul of every syllable that here was spoke

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 5.2
SPEAKER: Troilus
CONTEXT:
THERSITES
A proof of strength she could not publish more,
Unless she said “My mind is now turned whore.”
ULYSSES
All’s done, my lord.
TROILUS
It is.
ULYSSES
Why stay we, then?
TROILUS
To make a recordation to my soul
Of every syllable that here was spoke.
But if I tell how these two did co-act,
Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?
Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,
An esperance so obstinately strong,
That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears,
As if those organs had deceptious functions,
Created only to calumniate.
Was Cressid here?

DUTCH:
Om mij nog eenmaal voor den geest te roepen
Het minste woord, dat hier gesproken werd.
Maar zeide ik, welk een stuk die twee daar speelden
Zoude ik niet liegen, schoon ik waarheid sprak?

MORE:
Proof of strength=Strong proof
Publish more=Make clearer
Recordation=Account
Esperance=Hope
Invert=Reverse
Attest=Testimony
Deceptious=Deceptive
Calumniate=Slander
Compleat:
Error=Fout, misslag, dwaaling, dooling
To publish=Openbaarmaaken, bekendmaaken
Recordation=Herdenking
To invert=Omkeeren, ‘t onderste boven keeren, omwenden, omdraaijen
To attest=Betuygen
Calumniate=Lasteren, schandvlekken, verrooven

Topics: deceit, betrayal

To persist in doing wrong extenuates not wrong, but makes it much more heavy

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.2
SPEAKER: Hector
CONTEXT:
HECTOR
Paris and Troilus, you have both said well,
And on the cause and question now in hand
Have glozed, but superficially: not much
Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy:
The reasons you allege do more conduce
To the hot passion of distempered blood
Than to make up a free determination
‘Twixt right and wrong, for pleasure and revenge
Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
Of any true decision. Nature craves
All dues be rendered to their owners: now,
What nearer debt in all humanity
Than wife is to the husband? If this law
Of nature be corrupted through affection,
And that great minds, of partial indulgence
To their benumbed wills, resist the same,
There is a law in each well-ordered nation
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.
If Helen then be wife to Sparta’s king,
As it is known she is, these moral laws
Of nature and of nations speak aloud
To have her back returned: thus to persist
In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,
But makes it much more heavy. Hector’s opinion
Is this in way of truth; yet ne’ertheless,
My spritely brethren, I propend to you
In resolution to keep Helen still,
For ’tis a cause that hath no mean dependance
Upon our joint and several dignities.

DUTCH:
“Men zende haar terug; zoo te volharden
In ‘t onrecht, maakt het onrecht wis niet minder,
Neen, eer veel zwaarder.”

MORE:
Proverb: Give everyone his due
Proverb: As deaf as an adder

Topics: proverbs and idioms, law/legal, judgment, debt/obligation

To set his sense on the attentive bent, and then to speak

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.3
SPEAKER: Aeneas
CONTEXT:
AENEAS
Ay, Greek, that is my name.
AGAMEMNON
What’s your affair I pray you?
AENEAS
Sir, pardon; ’tis for Agamemnon’s ears.
AGAMEMNON
He hears naught privately that comes from Troy.
AENEAS
Nor I from Troy come not to whisper him:
I bring a trumpet to awake his ear,
To set his sense on the attentive bent,
And then to speak.
AGAMEMNON
Speak frankly as the wind;
It is not Agamemnon’s sleeping hour:
That thou shalt know. Trojan, he is awake,
He tells thee so himself.

DUTCH:
En ik kwam niet van Troje om iets te fluist’ren ;
‘k Breng een trompet voor ‘t wekken van zijn oor,
Om hem op mij opmerkzaam te doen zijn,
En dan te spreken.

MORE:
Attentive=Listening
Bent=Tendency, disposition
Compleat:
Attentive=Aandachtig, opmerkend
Bent=Buiging, neiging

Topics: integrity, communication

Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength

DUTCH:
Wat aangroeit tot een koorts. ‘t Is deze koorts,
Die Troje staande houdt, niet eigen sterkte.
In ‘t kort gezegd, wat Troje leven doet,
Is onze zwakte, niet zijn kracht en moed.

Topics: status, order/society, nature, respect, justice

Truth tired with iteration

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.2
SPEAKER: Troilus
CONTEXT:
TROILUS
O that I thought it could be in a woman—
As, if it can, I will presume in you—
To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;
To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
Outliving beauty’s outward, with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays!
Or that persuasion could but thus convince me,
That my integrity and truth to you
Might be affronted with the match and weight
Of such a winnowed purity in love;
How were I then uplifted! but, alas!
I am as true as truth’s simplicity
And simpler than the infancy of truth.
CRESSIDA
In that I’ll war with you.
TROILUS
O virtuous fight,
When right with right wars who shall be most right!
True swains in love shall in the world to come
Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes,
Full of protest, of oath and big compare,
Want similes, truth tired with iteration,
As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre,
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
As truth’s authentic author to be cited,
‘As true as Troilus’ shall crown up the verse,
And sanctify the numbers.

DUTCH:
Bij Troilus niet zweert, wanneer zijn lied,
Vol eeden reeds en prachtgelijkenissen ,
Een beeld behoeft, daar trouw die oude wraakt:

MORE:
Proverb: As true as truth itself

Affronted=Confronted
Winnowed=Separated, sifted grain from chaff
Uplifted=Overjoyed
War=Argue
Approve=Attest
Protest=Protestation
Big compare=Exaggerated comparison
Wants=Lacks
Turtle=Turtle dove
Adamant=Magnet
Compleat:
To affront=Hoonen, beschimpen; trotseeren
To winnow corn=Koorn wannen
To war=Oorlogen, kryg voeren
To approve=Beproeven, goedkeuren
Protestation=Betuyging, aantuyging, aankondiging, opentlyke verklaaring, vrybetuyging, tegeninlegging
Want=Gebrek
Adamant=Een diamant

Burgersdijk notes:
Als groeikracht aan de maan. Aan de maan werd groote invloed op den groei der planten toegeschreven.

Topics: proverbs and idioms, integrity, truth

Upon my wit, to defend my wiles

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 1.2
SPEAKER:
CONTEXT:
CRESSIDA
Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked with no date
in the pie, for then the man’s date’s out.
PANDARUS
You are such a woman! one knows not at what ward you
lie.
CRESSIDA
Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to
defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine
honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to
defend all these: and at all these wards I lie, at a
thousand watches.
PANDARUS
Say one of your watches.
CRESSIDA
Nay, I’ll watch you for that; and that’s one of the
chiefest of them too: if I cannot ward what I would
not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took
the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it’s
past watching.

DUTCH:
Op mijn rug, om mij van voren te verweren; op mijn
vernuft, om mijn streken te bedekken; (…)

MORE:
Minced=Emasculated
Ward=Fencing term meaning defensive position
Lie=Punning on lying and position taken
Secrecy=Ability to keep a secret
Watch=Act of guarding and observe
Swell past hiding=Pregnancy becomes obvious
Past watching=Too late to be concerned
Compleat:
To mince it=Met een gemaakten tred gaan
Mincing gait=Een trippelende gang, gemaakte tred
To ward off a blow=Eenen slag afweeren
Secrecy=Geheymhouding, bedektheyd
To watch=Waaken, bewaaken, bespieden
Past=Verleegen, geleden, voorby, over, gepasseerd
Past hope=Geen hoop meer over

Topics: intellect, defence, secrecy

Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.2
SPEAKER: Cressida
CONTEXT:
CRESSIDA
Let me go and try:
I have a kind of self resides with you;
But an unkind self, that itself will leave,
To be another’s fool. I would be gone:
Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.
TROILUS
Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.
CRESSIDA
Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love;
And fell so roundly to a large confession,
To angle for your thoughts: but you are wise,
Or else you love not, for to be wise and love
Exceeds man’s might; that dwells with gods above.

DUTCH:
Wie zoo verstandig spreekt, weet wat hij spreekt.

MORE:
Proverb: It is impossible to love and be wise

Reside=Dwell
Unkind=Unnatural
Craft=Cunning
Roundly=Openly
Large=Full
Angle=Fish
Compleat:
To reside=Verhouden, zich onthouden, verblyven
Craft=List, loosheyd
Roundly=Rondelyk, rond uyt
To angle=Hengelen

Topics: proverbs and idioms, wisdom, emotion and mood, love

What error leads must err

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 5.2
SPEAKER: Cressida
CONTEXT:
CRESSIDA
Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee
But with my heart the other eye doth see.
Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find,
The error of our eye directs our mind:
What error leads must err; O, then conclude
Minds swayed by eyes are full of turpitude.
THERSITES
A proof of strength she could not publish more,
Unless she said “My mind is now turned whore.”

DUTCH:
De dwaling van ons oog stuurt ons gemoed.
Wat dwaling leidt, moet dwalen; ach, wat smaad’!
‘t Gemoed, door ‘t oog geleid, pleegt kwaad op kwaad!

MORE:
Error=Wandering
Proof of strength=Strong proof
Publish more=Make clearer
Compleat:
Error=Fout, misslag, dwaaling, dooling
To publish=Openbaarmaaken, bekendmaaken

Topics: judgment, appearance, regret

What he will he does, and does so much that proof is called impossibility

DUTCH:
Hier, daar, alomme, spaart hij en verderft;
En kloekheid staat zijn strijdlust zoo ter zij,
Dat, wat hij wil, hij ‘t doet, en zooveel doet,
Dat zelfs wie ‘t ziet, het nog onmoog’lijk noemt.

Topics: skill/talent, conflict, anger, courage

What is aught, but as ’tis valued?

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.2
SPEAKER: Troilus
CONTEXT:
TROILUS
What is aught, but as ’tis valued?
HECTOR
But value dwells not in particular will;
It holds his estimate and dignity
As well wherein ’tis precious of itself
As in the prizer: ’tis mad idolatry
To make the service greater than the god
And the will dotes that is inclinable
To what infectiously itself affects,
Without some image of the affected merit.

DUTCH:
HECTOR
Ze is, broeder, wat het kost haar hier te houden,
Niet waard.
TROILUS
Iets is dat waard, waar wij ‘t op schatten.

MORE:
Cited in Shakespeare’s Legal Maxims (William Lowes Rushton).

Proverb: The worth of a thing is as it is esteemed (valued)

Dwells=Lies in
Prizer=Valuer
Dotes=Is excessively devoted
Inclinable=Partial (some versions have attributive)
Itself affects=What it fancies
Image=Concept
Affected=Admired object’s
Merit=Worth
Compleat:
To dwell=Verblyven
Prizer=Een schatter, waardeerder
To dote upon=Op iets verzot zyn; zyne zinnen zeer op iets gezet hebben
Inclinable=Geneigd
Affect=Liefde toedragen, ter harte gaan, beminnen
Merit=Verdienste

Topics: law/legal, value, proverbs and idioms

What modicums of wit he utters!

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.1
SPEAKER: Thersites
CONTEXT:
THERSITES
But yet you look not well upon him; for whosoever you
take him to be, he is Ajax.
ACHILLES
I know that, fool.
THERSITES
Ay, but that fool knows not himself.
AJAX
Therefore I beat thee.
THERSITES
Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! his
evasions have ears thus long. I have bobbed his
brain more than he has beat my bones: I will buy
nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not
worth the ninth part of a sparrow. This lord,
Achilles, Ajax, who wears his wit in his belly and
his guts in his head, I’ll tell you what I say of
him.

DUTCH:
Hahahaha! wat armzalige kwinkslagen stoot hij uit!
Zijne uitvallen hebben ooren, — zoo lang! Ik heb zijn
brein meer gedeukt, dan hij mijn gebeente heeft geraakt.

MORE:
Ajax=Punning on a jakes, or a toilet
Well=Punning on well (favourably) and well (properly)
Evasions=Evasive answers
Bobbed=Thumped
Pia mater=An outer membrane that protects the brain
Compleat:
Evasion=Ontkoming, ontvlugting, uitvlugt, verzet
To bob=Begekken, bedriegen, loeren, foppen;
Pia master=Het hersenvlies

Burgersdijk notes:
Hij is A-jakk’s. In ‘t Engelsch: he is Ajax, waarmede Thersites a jakes, een sekreetkuil of mestvaalt, wil zeggen; zie “Veel Gemin geen Gewin” (Love’s Labour’s lost) V. 2.- Achilles antwoordt, eenvoudig Ajax als eigennaam verstaande, I know that, fool, wat door Thersites opgevat wordt, als had Achilles gezegd: I know that fool, “ik ken dien nar”.

Topics: intellect, insult

What’s past and what’s to come is strewed with husks and formless ruin of oblivion

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.5
SPEAKER: Agamemnon
CONTEXT:
AGAMEMNON
Worthy of arms! as welcome as to one
That would be rid of such an enemy;
But that’s no welcome: understand more clear,
What’s past and what’s to come is strewed with husks
And formless ruin of oblivion;
But in this extant moment, faith and troth,
Strained purely from all hollow bias-drawing,
Bids thee, with most divine integrity,
From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.

DUTCH:
Doch dit, geen welkom is ‘t; versta dus beter:
Wat was, wat komt, is door vergetelheids
Onkenbaar puin bestelpt, door kaf verborgen;
Maar in deze’ oogenblik heet trouw en waarheid,
Van alle boze valschheid vlekk’loos rein,
Met al de oprechtheid, die men Goden wijdt,
Uit ‘s harten grond u, groote Hector, welkom.

MORE:
Extant=Present
Hollow=Insincere
Bias-drawing=Prejudice
Compleat:
Extant=Voor handen, in weezen
Hollow=Hol
Bias=Overhelling, overzwaajing, neyging

Topics: conflict, resolution, remedy

When time is old and hath forgot itself

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.2
SPEAKER: Cressida
CONTEXT:
CRESSIDA
Prophet may you be!
If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
When time is old and hath forgot itself,
When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,
And blind oblivion swallowed cities up,
And mighty states characterless are grated
To dusty nothing, yet let memory,
From false to false, among false maids in love,
Upbraid my falsehood! when they’ve said ‘as false
As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,
As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer’s calf,
Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son,’
‘Yea,’ let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,
‘As false as Cressid.’

DUTCH:
O, wees een profeet!
Word ik ooit valsch, wijk ik een haar van trouwe, —
Als tijd van ouderdom zichzelf vergat,
Als waterdruppels Troja’s steenen sloopten,
En ‘t blind vergeten steden heeft verzwolgen,
En wereldrijken spoorloos zijn vergruisd
Tot stof en niets, dan moge nog herinn’ring,
Waar valschheid wordt genoemd en valsche maagden,
Mijn valschheid smaden!

MORE:
Proverb: As good (false, unstable) as water ever wet

Swerve=Stray
Hair=Hair’s breadth
Grated=Worn away
Pard=Leopard
Stick=Hit
Compleat:
To swerve=Afdwaalen, afdoelen, afzwerven
Within a hair’s breadth=Het scheelde niet een haar
To swerve from the truth=Van de waarheid afwyken
Pard=Een pardel

Topics: proverbs and idioms, loyalty

Why tell you me of moderation?

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.5
SPEAKER: Cressida
CONTEXT:
PANDARUS
Be moderate, be moderate.
CRESSIDA
Why tell you me of moderation?
The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste,
And violenteth in a sense as strong
As that which causeth it: how can I moderate it?
If I could temporize with my affection,
Or brew it to a weak and colder palate,
The like allayment could I give my grief.
My love admits no qualifying dross;
No more my grief, in such a precious loss.
PANDARUS
Here, here, here he comes.

DUTCH:
Wat spreekt gij mij van matiging?
De smart is vol, scherp, diep, die ik gevoel,
En even overweldigend als dat,
Wat haar verwekt;

MORE:

Fine=Pure, clear
Violenteth=Rages
Brew=Dilute. In homeopathy, medicine can be made by diluting a poison that caused the disease
Allayment=Dilution
Qualifying=Modifying
Dross=Impurity
Compleat:
Fine=Schoon
Brew=Brouwen; mengen, berokkenen
To allay=Verligten, verzachten, maatigen, sussen, temperen
Qualify=Maatigen, temperen
Dross=Het schuim van eenig metaal

Topics: reason, grief, custom

Why, he’ll answer nobody; he professes not answering: speaking is for beggars

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.3
SPEAKER: Thersites
CONTEXT:
ACHILLES
Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.
THERSITES
Who, I? why, he’ll answer nobody; he professes not
answering: speaking is for beggars ; he wears his
tongue in’s arms. I will put on his presence: let
Patroclus make demands to me, you shall see the
pageant of Ajax.
ACHILLES
To him, Patroclus; tell him I humbly desire the
valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector
to come unarmed to my tent, and to procure
safe-conduct for his person of the magnanimous
and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honoured
captain-general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon,
et cetera. Do this.

DUTCH:
Wie? ik? hij zal niemand antwoord geven; hij maakt
van het niet antwoorden zijn beroep; spreken is goed
voor bedelaars; hij heeft zijn tong in zijn armen.

MORE:
Profess=Declare, claim as a calling or trade
Arms=Military prowess
Put on=Imitate
Pageant=Spectacle, show
Compleat:
To profess=(hold a doctrine) Een leer belyden, gelooven, belydenis doen
Arms=Wapenen, geweer, een wapenschild, wapen
To put on=Aandoen
Pageant=Een Triomfhoog, triomfwagen; schijn

Topics: communication

Will he swagger himself out on’s own eyes?

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 5.2
SPEAKER: Troilus
CONTEXT:
THERSITES
Will he swagger himself out on’s own eyes?
TROILUS
This she? no, this is Diomed’s Cressida:
If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,
If sanctimony be the gods’ delight,
If there be rule in unity itself,
This is not she. O madness of discourse,
That cause sets up with and against itself!
Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt
Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid.
Within my soul there doth conduce a fight
Of this strange nature that a thing inseparate
Divides more wider than the sky and earth,
And yet the spacious breadth of this division
Admits no orifex for a point as subtle
As Ariachne’s broken woof to enter.
Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto’s gates;
Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven:
Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself;
The bonds of heaven are slipped, dissolved, and loosed;
And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics
Of her o’er-eaten faith, are bound to Diomed

DUTCH:
Wil hij zich uit zijn eigen oogen zwetsen?

MORE:
Swagger=Bluster
Santimony=(1) Sacred; (2) Sanctity
Discourse=Logical argument, reason
Cause=Case, plea
Bi-fold=Divided
Perdition=Ruin
Conduce=Conduct
Inseparate=Undivided
Subtle=Fine
Woof=Weaving thread
Instance=Case in point
Ort=Remnant
Compleat:
To swagger=Snoeven, pochgen, snorken
Discourse=Redeneering, reedenvoering, gesprek, vertoog
Cause=Oorzaak, reden, zaak
Perdition=Verderf, verlies, ondergang
To conduce=Vorderlyk zyn, dienstig zyn, baaten
Subtle=Listig, loos, sneedig, spitsvindig
Woof=Inslag
Instance=Een voorval, voorbeeld, exempel; aandringing, aanhouding; blyk

Topics: appearance, betrayal

Will you set your wit to a fool’s?

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.1
SPEAKER: Achilles
CONTEXT:
THERSITES
I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not: he there: that he: look you there. he is the fool, look at him.
AJAX
O thou damned cur! I shall—
ACHILLES
Will you set your wit to a fool’s?
THERSITES
No, I warrant you; for a fool’s will shame it.
PATROCLUS
Good words, Thersites.
ACHILLES
What’s the quarrel?

DUTCH:
Wilt gij uw verstand tegenover dat van een nar stellen?

MORE:
Set your wit to=Pit your wit against
The fool=Ajax

Topics: intellect, insult

Words pay no debts, give her deeds

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.2
SPEAKER: Pandarus
CONTEXT:
PANDARUS
Come, come, what need you blush? shame’s a baby.
Here she is now: swear the oaths now to her that
you have sworn to me. What, are you gone again?
you must be watched ere you be made tame, must you?
Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward,
we’ll put you i’ the files. Why do you not speak to
her? Come, draw this curtain, and let’s see your
picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend
daylight! an ’twere dark, you’d close sooner.
So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. How now!
a kiss in fee-farm! build there, carpenter; the air
is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere
I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the
ducks i’ the river: go to, go to.
TROILUS
You have bereft me of all words, lady.
PANDARUS
Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she’ll
bereave you o’ the deeds too, if she call your
activity in question. What, billing again? Here’s
‘In witness whereof the parties interchangeably’—
Come in, come in: I’ll go get a fire.

DUTCH:
Woorden betalen geen schulden, geef haar daden;
maar zij zal u ook van de daden berooven, als zij uwe
werkzaamheid op de proef stelt.

MORE:
Proverb: Not words but deeds
Proverb: Words pay no debts

Shame’s a baby=Blushing is for babies
Watched=Hawks were kept awake at night to tame them
Tamed=Imagery common to training hawks
Keen=Another hawking reference
Files or fills=Shafts (ponies were backed into the shafts of carts)
Close=Agree
Rub on=Move on, slowing down (bowling term)
Tercel=Male falcon
Compleat:
Shame=Schaamte
To shame=Beschamen, beschaamd maaken, schande aandoen
Keen=Scherp, bits, doordringend
To close=Overeenstemmen; besluiten
Things rub on bravely=Men vordert geweldig, men gaat er braaf mede voort
Tercel or tassel-hawk=Mannetje van een valk

Burgersdijk notes:
Iets verder geschoven, dicht bijeen! Het oorspronkelijke is onvertaalbaar: Rub on, kiss the mistress. Een uitdrukking aan het kegelspel ontleend: to rub on, de kegels even aanraken en voortgaan”, to kiss the mistress, “de koningin”, d. i. den koning van het kegelspel, “kussen, raken, omwerpen”.
Valkentersel. ,”Tersel” mannetjes-jachtvalk. Het is een derde kleiner dan het wijfjen; van daar tiercelet, in den mond der Hollandsche. valkeniers tot tersel geworden.
Al weder trekkebekken! In ‘t Engelsch: billing again? Here’s, In witness thereof etc. To bill beteekent
“trekkebekken”, kussen”, maar ook “bij contract vaststellen”.

Topics: proverbs and idioms, language, debt/obligation

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 5.3
SPEAKER: Troilus
CONTEXT:
PANDARUS
A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick so
troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl;
and what one thing, what another, that I shall
leave you one o’ these days: and I have a rheum
in mine eyes too, and such an ache in my bones
that, unless a man were cursed, I cannot tell what
to think on’t. What says she there?
TROILUS
Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart:
The effect doth operate another way.
Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together.
My love with words and errors still she feeds;
But edifies another with her deeds.

DUTCH:
Slechts woorden, woorden, uit het harte niets.

MORE:
Proverb: Words are but wind

Tisick=Complaint, cough, perhaps from consumption (also phthisic or hectic)
Rheum=Discharge
Matter=Substance, meaning
Effect=Performance, outcome
Errors=Untruths
Edify=Strengthen, support
Compleat:
Tisick=Longziekte, teering
Rheum or rhume=Een zinking op de oogen
Matter=Stoffe, zaak, oorzaak
Effect=Uitkomst, uitwerking, gewrocht
Error=Fout, misslag, dwaaling, dooling
Edify=Stichten, opbouwen

Topics: proverbs and idioms, language, achievement

You do as chapmen do, dispraise the thing that you desire to buy

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 4.1
SPEAKER: Paris
CONTEXT:
DIOMEDES
She’s bitter to her country: hear me, Paris:
For every false drop in her bawdy veins
A Grecian’s life hath sunk; for every scruple
Of her contaminated carrion weight,
A Trojan hath been slain: since she could speak,
She hath not given so many good words breath
As for her Greeks and Trojans suffered death.
PARIS
Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do,
Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy:
But we in silence hold this virtue well,
We’ll but commend what we intend to sell.
Here lies our way.

DUTCH:
Vriend Diomedes, als een kooper doet gij,
En smaalt op iets, dat gij te koopen wenscht;
Maar ik ken hare waarde en zwijg dus stil;
Ik roem alleen, wat ik verkoopen wil. —

MORE:
Proverb: He that blames would buy

Bawdy=Unchaste
Carrion=Rotted
Chapmen=Salesmen
Dispraise=Censure
But=Only
Compleat:
Bawdy=Ontuchtig, eerloos
Carrion=Kreng; pry, karonje
Chapman=Een kooper, koopman, kalant
Chap=Een kooper, bieder
Dispraise=Mispryzen, hoonen, verachten, laaken
But=Maar, of, dan, behalven, maar alleen

Topics: proverbs and idioms, value, business

You have bereft me of all words, lady

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.2
SPEAKER: Pandarus
CONTEXT:
PANDARUS
Come, come, what need you blush? shame’s a baby.
Here she is now: swear the oaths now to her that
you have sworn to me. What, are you gone again?
you must be watched ere you be made tame, must you?
Come your ways, come your ways; an you draw backward,
we’ll put you i’ the fills. Why do you not speak to
her? Come, draw this curtain, and let’s see your
picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend
daylight! an ’twere dark, you’d close sooner.
So, so; rub on, and kiss the mistress. How now!
a kiss in fee-farm! build there, carpenter; the air
is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere
I part you. The falcon as the tercel, for all the
ducks i’ the river: go to, go to.
TROILUS
You have bereft me of all words, lady.
PANDARUS
Words pay no debts, give her deeds: but she’ll
bereave you o’ the deeds too, if she call your
activity in question. What, billing again? Here’s
‘In witness whereof the parties interchangeably’—
Come in, come in: I’ll go get a fire.

DUTCH:
Gij hebt mij van alle woorden beroofd, jonkvrouw.

MORE:
Proverb: Not words but deeds
Proverb: Words pay no debts

Topics: proverbs and idioms, language, debt/obligation

You shall not bob us out of our melody

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 3.1
SPEAKER: Helen
CONTEXT:
PANDARUS
I have business to my lord, dear queen. My lord,
will you vouchsafe me a word?
HELEN
Nay, this shall not hedge us out: we’ll hear you
sing, certainly.
PANDARUS
Well, sweet queen. you are pleasant with me. But,
marry, thus, my lord: my dear lord and most esteemed
friend, your brother Troilus,—
HELEN
My Lord Pandarus; honey-sweet lord,—
PANDARUS
Go to, sweet queen, to go:—commends himself most
affectionately to you,—
HELEN
You shall not bob us out of our melody: if you do,
our melancholy upon your head!

DUTCH:
Gij zult ons onze melodie niet ontfutselen; als gij dit
doet, onze melancholie op uw hoofd!

MORE:
Go to=Mild expression of exasperation
Vouchsafe=Condescend, deign to
To hedge=Shift; To hedge out=Exclude
Pleasant=Teasing
Bob=Cheat
Compleat:
To vouchsafe=Gewaardigen, vergunnen
To hedge=Beheynen, omheynen
Pleasant=Vermaakelyk, geneuglyk, kortswylig, vrolyk
Bob=Begekking, boert
To bob=Begekken, bedriegen, loeren, foppen§

Topics: friendship, debt/obligation

Your breath of full consent bellied his sails

PLAY: Troilus and Cressida
ACT/SCENE: 2.2
SPEAKER: Troilus
CONTEXT:
TROILUS
I take today a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will;
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots ‘twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgement: how may I avoid,
Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I chose? there can be no evasion
To blench from this and to stand firm by honour:
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant,
When we have soiled them, nor the remainder viands
We do not throw in unrespective sieve,
Because we now are full. It was thought meet
Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks:
Your breath of full consent bellied his sails;
The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce
And did him service: he touched the ports desired,
And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive,
He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo’s, and makes stale the morning.

DUTCH:
Uws bijvals adem blies zijn zeilen vol;
De wind en golven, oude twisters, voerden,
Een wijl verzoend, hem naar ‘t gewenschte strand

MORE:
I take today=What if I were today to take
Election=Choice
Conduct=Guidance
Traded=Experienced
Blench=Flinch, back away from
Turn upon=Return to
Viands=Meat; food, victuals
Unrespective=Undiscriminating
Bellied=Swelled
Wrangler=Adversary
Compleat:
To eleect=Kiezen, verkiezen
Conduct=Bestieren, geleyden
Traded=Gehandeld
Viands=Spyzen van vleesch
Wrangler=Krakeelder

Topics: independence, free will, value