He is so plaguy proud, that the death-tokens of it Cry-No recovery. Agam. Let Ajax go to him.- Ulyss. O Agamemnon, let it not be so! No, this thrice-worthy and right-valiant lord By going to Achilles : That were to enlard his fat-already pride; Nest. O, this is well; he rubs the vein of him. (Aside.) Dio. And how his silence drinks up this applause! (Aside.) Ajax. If I go to him, with my arm'd fist I'll pash Over the face. [him Agam. O, no, you shall not go. Ajax. An he be proud with me, I'll pheeze his Let me go to him. [pride: Ulyss. Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel. Nest. Himself! Ajax. Can he not be sociable? Ajax. A paltry, insolent fellow, How he describes (Aside.) Ulyss Chides blackness. The raven (Aside.) Ajax. I will let his humours blood. Agam. He'll be physician, that should be the Wit would be out of fashion. (Aside.) Ajax. He should not bear it so, He should eat swords first: Shall pride carry it? Nest. An 'twould, you'd carry half. (Aside.) Ulyss. He'd have ten shares. (Aside.) Ajax. I'll knead him, I'll make him supple :Nest. He's not yet thorough warm: force him with praises: (Aside.) Pour in, pour in; his ambition is dry. Here is a man-But 'tis before his face; Nest. Wherefore should you so? He is not emulous, as Achilles is. Ulyss. Know the whole world, he is as valiant. Ajax. A whoreson dog, that shall palter thus with us! I would, he were a Trojan ! Nest. Were it in Ajax now What a vice Ulyss If he were proud? Dio. Or covetous of praise? Ulyss. Ay, or surly borne ? Dio. Or strange, or self-affected? Ulyss. Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure; Praise him that got thee, she that gave thee suck: Fam'd be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature To sinewy Ajax. I'll not praise thy wisdom, He must, he is, he cannot but be wise ;- Shall I call you father? Keeps thicket. Please it our great general Fresh kings are come to Troy: To-morrow, SCENE I.-Troy. A Room in Priam's Palace. Pan. Friend! you! pray you, a word: Do not you follow the young lord Paris? Serv. Ay, sir, when he goes before me. Serv. Sir, I do depend upon the lord. Pan. You do depend upon a noble gentleman; I must needs praise him. Serv. The lord be praised! Pan. You know me, do you not? Serv. 'Faith, sir, superficially. Pan. Friend, know me better; I am the lord Pandarus. Serv. I hope I shall know your honour better. Pan. I do desire it. Serv. You are in a state of grace. (Music within.) Pan. Grace! not so, friend; honour and lordship are my titles:-What music is this? Serv. I do but partly know, sir; it is music in parts. Pan. Know you the musicians? Pan. Who play they to? Serv. To the hearers, sir. Pan. At whose pleasure, friend? Serv. At mine, sir, and theirs that love music. Pan. Command, I mean, friend. Serv. Who shall I command, sir? Pan. Friend, we understand not one another; I am too courtly, and thou art too cunning: At whose request do these men play? Serv. That's to't, indeed, sir: Marry, sir, at the request of Paris my lord, who is there in person; with him, the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of beauty, love's invisible soul,— Pan. Who, my cousin Cressida? Serv. No, sir, Helen: Could you not find ont that by her attributes? Pan. 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 seeths. Serv. Sodden business! there's a stewed phrase, indeed! Enter PARIS and HELEN, attended. Pan. Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company! fair desires, in all fair measure, fairly guide them! especially to you, fair queen! fair thoughts be your fair pillow! Helen. Dear lord, you are full of fair words. Pan. You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen. Fair prince, here is good broken music. Par. You have broke it, cousin: and, by my life, you shall make it whole again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your performance:-Nell, he is full of harmony. Pan. Truly, lady, no. Helen. O, sir, Pan. Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude. Par. Well said, my lord! well, you say so in fits. Pan. 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. Pan. Well, sweet queen, you are pleasant with me. But (marry) thus, my lord,-My dear lord, and most esteemed friend, your brother TroilusHelen. My lord Pandarus; honey-sweet lord, 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?-my very very sweet queen? [night? Par. What exploit's in hand? where sups he toHelen. Nay, but my lord,— Pan. What says my sweet queen ?-My cousin will fall out with you. You must not know where 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. 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 a-field to-day? Par. Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy: I would fain have armed to-day, 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. [Exit. (A retreat sounded.) Par. They are come from field: let us to Priam's hall, [you, To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty, Par. Sweet, above thought I love thee. [Exeunt. Pan. O, here he comes.-How now, how now? Tro. Sirrah, walk off. [Exit Servant. Pan. Have you seen my cousin? Tro. No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door, Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks, And give me swift transportance to those fields, Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon, 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, That it enchants my sense; What will it be, Par. Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love. Too subtle-potent, tun'd too sharp in sweetness, 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, For the capacity of my ruder powers: I fear it much; and I do fear besides, 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 My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse; 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 day-light! an 'twere dark, you'd close sooner. So, so; rub on; and kiss the mistress. How now, a kiss in feefarm! 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. Cres. Will you walk in, my lord? [Exit. Tro. O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus! [my lord! Cres. Wished, my lord?-The gods grant!-0 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! [truly. Tro. Fears make devils cherubim ; they never see 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 Troilas. Cres. Will you walk in, my lord? Pan. What, blushing still? have you not done talking yet? 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 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 ;- When we are so unsecret to ourselves? But, though I lov'd you well, I woo'd you not ; Tro. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence. Cres. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me; 'Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kiss: For this time will I take my leave, my lord. I am asham'd;-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. 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; Cres. Perchance, my lord, I shew more craft than love; And fell so roundly to a large confession, That (As, if it can, I will presume in you,) 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, Wants similes, truth tir'd with iteration,-in As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre,- As true as Troilus shall crown up the verse, Cres. Prophet may you be! If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth, When time is old and hath forgot itself, When water-drops have worn the stones of Troy, And blind oblivion swallow'd cities up, And mighty states charácterless 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, 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. The advantage of the time prompts me aloud As new into the world, strange, unacquainted: Out of those many register'd in promise, Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, call'd Antenor, In change of him: let him be sent, great princes, Agam. What he requests of us. Good Diomed, [Exeunt Diomedes and Calchas. Enter ACHILLES and PATROCLUS, before their Tent. Ulyss. Achilles stands i'the entrance of his tent: Please it out our general to pass strangely by him, If so, I have derision med'cinable, To use between your strangeness and his pride, Achil. What, comes the general to speak with me? Agam. Achil. The better. [Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor. Good day, good day. Men. How do you? how do you? [Exit. Achil. What, does the cuckold scorn me? Ajax. How now, Patroclus? Achil Good morrow, Ajax, Ha? Ay, and good next day too. [Exit. 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; Achil. What, am I poor of late? 'Tis certain, Greatness, once fallen out with for tune, Must fall out with men too: What the declin'd is, Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, Save these men's looks; who do, methinks, find out Now, great Thetis' son? A strange fellow here 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, Achil. This is not strange, Ulysses. It is familiar; but at the author's drift: (Though in and of him there be much consisting,) The voice again; or, like a gate of steel, His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this; Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse; Most abject in regard, and dear in use! How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall, Achil. I do believe it: for they pass'd by me, A great-siz'd monster of ingratitudes : Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; That one by one pursue: If you give way, Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours: That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand; [seek High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,— The present eye praises the present object: Achil. I have strong reasons. Ulyss. 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. Ulyss. Is that a wonder? Ha! known? The providence that's in a watchful state, Patr. To this effect, Achilles, have I mov'd you: 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: Seals a commission to a blank of danger; Achil. Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus: To see great Hector in his weeds of peace; Ther. A wonder! |