Helen. My Lord Pandarus; honey-sweet lord, Pan. Go to, sweet queen, go to: commends himself most affectionately to you.

72

Helen. You shall not bob us out of our melody: if you do, our melancholy upon your head! Pan. Sweet queen, sweet queen! that's a sweet queen, i' faith.

Helen. And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.

Pan. Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall it not, in truth, la! Nay, I care not for such words; no, no. And, my lord, he desires you, that if the king call for him at supper, you will make his excuse.

Helen. My Lord Pandarus,

83

Pan. What says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen?

Par. What exploit 's in hand? where sups he to-night?

Helen. Nay, but, my lord,

Pan. What says my sweet queen? My cousin will fall out with you. You must not know where he sups.

92

Par. I'll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida. Pan. No, no, no such matter; you are wide. Come, your disposer is sick.

Par. Well, I'll make excuse.

Pan. Come, come, I'll hear no more of this. I'll sing you a song now.

Helen. Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead. Pan. Ay, you may, you may.

Helen. Let thy song be love: this love will undo us all. O Cupid, Cupid, Cupid!

Pan. Love! ay, that it shall, i' faith. Par. Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love.

Pan. In good troth, it begins so.

Love, love, nothing but love, still more!
For, O love's bow

Shoots buck and doe:

The shaft confounds,
Not that it wounds,

But tickles still the sore.

These lovers cry O! O! they die!

120

Sings.

Pan. Not I, honey-sweet queen. hear how they sped to-day. You'll remember your brother's excuse?

To

Par. To a hair.

Pan. Farewell, sweet queen.

Helen. Commend me to your niece. Pan. I will, sweet queen.

Exit.

A retreat sounded.

Par. They're come from field: let us to Priam's hall

greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you

To help unarm our Hector: his stubborn buckles, With these your white enchanting fingers touch'd, Shall more obey than to the edge of steel

162

Par. I spy.

Pan. You spy! what do you spy? Come, give me an instrument. Now, sweet queen. 101 Helen. Why, this is kindly done.

Pan. My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet queen.

Helen. She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my Lord Paris.

SCENE II.-The Same. PANDARUS'S Orchard. Enter PANDARUS and TROILUS's Boy, meeting. Pan. How now! where's thy master? at my cousin Cressida's?

Boy. No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.

Enter TROILUS.

Pan. O! here he comes. How now, how now!
Tro. Sirrah, walk off.
Exit Boy.

Pan. Have you seen my cousin?

Tro. No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door, Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks Staying for waftage. O! be thou my Charon, 10 And give me swift transportance to those fields Where I may wallow in the lily-beds Propos'd for the deserver. O gentle Pandarus! From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings, And fly with me to Cressid.

Pan. Walk here i' the orchard. I'll bring her straight.. Exit. Tro. I am giddy, expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet

20

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, tun'd 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.

:

Re-enter PANDARUS.

Pan. She's making her ready; she 'll come straight you must be witty now. She does so blush, and fetches her wind so short, as if she were frayed with a sprite: I'll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain: she fetches her breath so short as a new-ta'en sparrow. Exit.

Tro. Even such a passion doth embrace my
bosom:
35

My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse;
And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
Like vassalage at unawares encountering
The eye of majesty.

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'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.

Tro. You have bereft me of all words, lady. 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. 62

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?

71

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. 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 perform. ance 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?

97

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?

110

Cres. Well, uncle, what folly I commit I dedicate to you.

Pan. I thank you for that: if my lord get a boy of you, you 'll give him me. Be true to my lord: if he flinch, chide me for it. Tro. You know now your hostages; your uncle's word, and my firm faith.

Pan. Nay, I'll give my word for her too. Our kindred, though they be long ere they are wooed, they are constant being won: they are burrs, I can tell you; they'll stick where they are thrown. Cres. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart.

122

Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day For many weary months.

Tro. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?

130

With the first glance that ever-pardon me-
If I confess much you will play the tyrant.
I love you now; but not, till now, so much
But I might master it: in faith, I lie;
My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown
Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!
Why have I blabb'd? who shall be true to us
When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
But, though I lov'd you well, I woo'd you not;
And yet good faith, I wish'd myself a man,
Or that we women had men's privilege

Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue;
For in this rapture I shall surely speak
The thing I shall repent. See, see! your silence,
Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws
My very soul of counsel. Stop my mouth. 142

Tro. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.

170

Tro. 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 winnow'd 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. Cres. In that I'll war with you. Tro. O virtuous fight! When right with right wars who shall be most right.

180

True swains in love shall in the world to come
Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rimes,
Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,
Want similes, truth tir'd 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,

As truth's authentic author to be cited,
As true as Troilus' shall crown up the verse 190
And sanctify the numbers.

200

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.'

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.

213

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!

And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here Bed, chamber, Pandar to provide this gear! 201 Exeunt.

SCENE III.-The Grecian Camp.

Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NES-
TOR, AJAX, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS.
Cal. 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 come,
I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,
Incurr'd a traitor's name; expos'd myself,
From certain and possess'd conveniences,
To doubtful fortunes; sequestering from me all
That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition
Made tame and most familiar to my nature; 16
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 register'd in promise,
Which, you say, live to come in my behalf.
Agam. What would'st thou of us, Trojan !
make demand.

21

Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor, Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear. Oft have you, often have you thanks therefore, Desir'd 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.
Agam.
Let Diomedes bear him,
And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have
What he requests of us. Good Diomed, 32

Furnish you fairly for this interchange:
Withal bring word if Hector will to-morrow
Be answer'd in his challenge: Ajax is ready.
Dio. This shall I undertake; and 'tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.

Exeunt DIOMEDES and CALCHAS. Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their Tent.

Ulyss. 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

40

To use between your strangeness and his pride,
Which his own will shall have desire to drink.
It may do good: pride hath no other glass
To show itself but pride, for supple knees
Feed arrogance and are the proud man's fees.
Agam. We'll execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along :
So do each lord, and either greet him not,
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not look'd on. I will lead the way.
Achil. What comes the general to speak
with me?

51

Patr. They pass by strangely: they were us'd to bend,

To send their smiles before them to Achilles;
To come as humbly as they us'd to creep
To holy altars.

Achil. What am I poor of late? 'Tis certain, greatness, once fall'n out with fortune,

Must fall out with men too: what the declin'd 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, and favour,

Prizes of accident as oft as merit:

Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that lean'd on them as slippery too,
Doth 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

This is not strange, Ulysses. The beauty that is borne here in the face The bearer knows not, but commends itself To others' eyes: nor doth the eye itself, That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself, Not going from itself; but eye to eye oppos'd Salutes each other with each other's form; For speculation turns not to itself

110

Till it hath travell'd, and is married there Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.

Ulyss. 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 form'd in the applause Where they're extended; who, like an arch, reverberates

120

As if his foot were on brave Hector's breast, 140 And great Troy shrinking.

Achil. I do believe it; for they pass'd by me As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me Good word nor look: what are my deeds forgot? Ulyss. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes :

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

150

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 enter'd tide they all rush by
And leave you hindmost;

200

All the commerce that you have had with

Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O'errun and trampled on: then what they do in
present,

Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop

yours;

For time is like a fashionable host,

That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,

And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer: 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.

170

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: 180
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 would'st 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.

A chil.

I have strong reasons. Ulyss.

Of this my privacy 190

But 'gainst your privacy

The reasons are more potent and heroical. "Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love With one of Priam's daughters.

Achil. Ha! known!

Ulyss. Is that a wonder?

The providence that's in a watchful state

break.

Erit. Patr. To this effect, Achilles, have I mov'd you.

A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loath'd than an effeminate man
In time of action. I stand condemn'd for
this:

They think my little stomach to the war
And your great love to me restrains you thus.
Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton
Cupid

Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
Be shook to air.
Achil.

Shall Ajax fight with Hector! Patr. Ay; and perhaps receive much honour by him.

Achil. I see my reputation is at stake; My fame is shrewdly gor'd.

Patr. O! then beware; Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves :

938

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.
Achil. Go call Thersites hither, sweet Pa-
troclus:

I'll send the fool to Ajax and desire him
To invite the Trojan lords after the combat
To see us here unarm'd. 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. A labour sav'd!
Enter THERSITES.