Pan. Go to, sweet queen, go to:- - commends himself most affectionately to you.

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,

Pan. What says my sweet queen,

very sweet queen?

my very

Par. What exploit's in hand? where sups he tonight?

Pan. Is this the generation of love? hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds? - Why, they are vipers: Is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who's afield to-day?

Par Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy: I would fain have armed to-night, but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not?

Helen. He hangs the lip at something; - you know all, lord Pandarus.

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

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 are come from field: let us to Priam's

hall,

To 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,

Or force of Greekish sinews; you shall do more Than all the island kings, disarm great Hector. Helen. 'Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris :

Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty,

Now, sweet queen.

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.

Pan. He! no, she'll none of him; they two are twain.

Helen. Falling in, after falling out, may nake them three.

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

Helen. Ay, ay, pr'ythee 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, oh, love's bow

Shoots buck and doe:

The shaft confounds,

Not that it wounds,

But tickles still the sore.

These lovers cry
Oh! oh! they die!
Yet that which seems the wound to kill,
Doth turn oh! oh! to ha! ha! he!

So dying love lives still :

Oh! oh! a while, but ha! ha! ha! Oh! oh! groans out for ha! ha! ha! Hey ho!

Helen. In love, i' faith, to the very tip of the nose. Par. He eats nothing but doves, love; and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love.

Yea, overshines ourself.

straight.

Pan. Walk here i'the orchard, I'll bring her [Exit PANDARUS. Tro. 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 watry palate tastes indeed
Love's thrice-reputed 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:

Enter PANDARUS and 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 of 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 PANDARUS. 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 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 worst.

:

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 Well, uncle,

Cres. talking yet? 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 burs, I can tell you; they'll stick where they are thrown.

Cres. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me

heart:

Prince Troilus, I have lov'd you night and day,
For many weary months.

Tro. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
Cres. Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord,
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.

Tro. And shall, albeit sweet musick issues thence.
Pan. Pretty, i'faith.

Cres. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me : 'Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kiss: I am asham'd; - O heavens! what have I done?For this time will I take my leave, my lord. Tro. Your leave, sweet Cressid?

Pan. Leave an you take leave till to-morrow morning,

Cres. Pray you, content you.
Tro.

What offends you, lady?
Cres. Sir, mine own company.
Tro.
Yourself.

Cres. Let me go and try :

You cannot shun

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
Tro. Well know they what they speak, that speak
so wisely.

Cres. 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.
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,

Cres.

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 swallow'd 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 have 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.

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.

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; séquest'ring 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 register'd in promise,
Which, you say, live to come in my behalf,

Agam. What would'st thou of us, Trojan? make demand.

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,
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, why turn'd on him:

If so, I have derision med'cinable,

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.

Achil.

Ajax.

Achil. Good morrow. Ajax.

Good morrow, Ajax.

Ha?

Ay, and good next day too.
[Erit AJAX.

Achil. What mean these fellows? Know they not
Achilles?

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.
'Tis certain, greatness, once fallen 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, favour,
Prizes of accident as oft as merit :

What, am I poor of late?

Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that lean'd 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?

Ulyss.

Now, great Thetis' son?
Achil. What are you reading?
Ulyss..
A strange fellow .nere
Writes me, That man - how dearly ever parted,
How much in having, or without, or in,—

Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.

Achil.

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, 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 are extended; which, 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 rapt in this;
And apprehended here immediately
The unknown Ajax.

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 renown'd.
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.

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-sized monster of ingratitudes :

Those scraps are good deeds past: which are devour'd

As fast as they are made, forgot as soon

As done: Perséverance, 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;
Or, like a gallant horse fallen 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 out-stretch'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.

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 tlngs 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 them

selves,

And drave great Mars to faction

Achil.

I have strong reasons. Ulyss.

Achil. How can that be?

Of this my privacy

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.

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 Ajar bravely beat down him.
Farewell, my lord: I as your lover speak;
The fool slides o'er the ice that you should break.

[Exit.
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.

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.

Achil. 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 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.

Ther. A wonder!

Achil. What?

Ther. Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock, a stride, and a stand: ruminates, like an hostess, that hath no arithmetick but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politick 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 for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i'the combat, he'll break it 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 is grown a very land fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin.

Achil. Thou must be my embassador to him, Thersites.

Ther. Who, I? why, he'll answer nobody; he professes not answering; speaking is for beggars: he wears his tongue in his arms. I will put on his presence; let Patroclus make demands to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax.

Achil. 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-timeshonoured captain-general of the Grecian army Agamemnon. Do this.

Patr. Jove bless great Ajax.
Ther. Humph!

Patr. I come from the worthy Achilles, ·
Ther. Ha!

Patr. Who most humbly desires you, to invite Hector to his tent!

Achil. How so?

Ther. He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector; and is so prophetically proud of an heroical udgelling, that he raves in saying nothing.

[Exeunt ACHILLES and PATROCLUS. Ther. '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 ig