Re-enter Pandarus with Cressida. Pan. 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 'ld 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, Tro. You have bereft me of all words, lady. [go to. Pan. 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. [Exit. Cres. Will you walk in, my lord? Tro. O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus ! Cres. Wished, my lord?—The gods grant-O my lord! Tro. What should they grant? what makes this pretty abruption? What too curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love? Cres. More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes. Tro. Fears make devils of cherubins; they never see truly. Cres. Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: to fear the worst oft cures the worse. Tro. O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's pageant there is presented no monster. Cres. Nor nothing monstrous neither ? Tro. 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. Cres. They say, all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform, vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one. They that have the voice of lions and the act of hares, are they not monsters? Tro. 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. Cres. Will you walk in, my lord? Re-enter Pandarus. Pan. What, blushing still? have you not done talking yet? Cres. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart. Tro. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win? Why have I blabb'd? who shall be true to us, But, though I loved you well, I woo'd you not; Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue ; The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence, Cres. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me; I am ashamed; O heavens! what have I done? Tro. Your leave, sweet Cressid.? Pan. Leave! an you take leave till to-morrow morning— Cres. Pray you, content you. I have a kind of self resides with you, To be another's fool. I would be gone: Where is my wit? I know not what I speak. Tro. Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely. To angle for your thoughts: but you are wise; To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love; Might be affronted with the match and weight Tro. O virtuous fight, When right with right wars who shall be most right! Cres. Prophet may you be ! If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth, And mighty states characterless are grated From false to false, among false maids in love, As fox to lamb, or 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.' Pan. 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.' Tro. Amen. Cres. Amen. Pan. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber with a bed; which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death: away! [Exeunt Tro. and Cres. And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here Bed, chamber, Pandar to provide this gear! SCENE III The Grecian camp. [Exit. Flourish. Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, Cal. Now, princes, for the service I have done you, To give me now a little benefit, Out of those many register'd in promise, Which, you say, live to come in my behalf. Agam. What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? make demand. Agam. Let Diomedes bear him, And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have Dio. This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burthen Which I am proud to bear. [Exeunt Diomedes and Calchas. Achil. What, comes the general to speak with me? |