Troilus. Sirrah, walk off,

[Exit SERVANT.

Pandarus. Have you seen my cousin?
Troilus. No, Pandarus: I stalk about her door,
Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks
Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
And give me swift transportance. Pandarus,
From Cupid's shoulder pluck his painted wings,
And fly with me to Cressid!

Pandarus. Walk here i' the orchard, I'll bring her straight. [Exit PANDARUS. Troilus. I am giddy; expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet

That it enchants my sense; and I do fear
That I shall lose distinction in my joys;

As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
The enemy flying.

Re-enter PANDARUS.

Pandarus. She's making her ready, she'll come straight: you must be witty now. She does so blush; I'll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain :-she fetches her breath as short as a new-ta'en sparrow. [Exit PANDARUS. Troilus. Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom: My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse;

And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring
The eye of majesty.

Enter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA.

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?

Troilus. You have bereft me of all words, lady.

7 Shafts of a carriage.

Pandarus. Words pay no debts. Come in, come in; I'll go get a fire. [Exit PANDARUS. Cressida. Will you walk in, my lord? Troilus. O Cressida, how often have I wished me thus? Cressida. Wished, my lord? The gods grant! O my lord!

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 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 worst.

Troilus. O, let my lady apprehend no fear: in all Cupid's pageant there is presented no monster.

Cressida. Nor nothing monstrous neither?

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 t enough, than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed. This is the monstruosity in love, lady.

Cressida. 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?

Cressida. Will you walk in, my lord?

Re-enter PANDARUS.

Pandarus. What, blushing still?

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

VOL. V.

8 Titles.

E

Pandarus. I thank you for that; be true to my lord: if he flinch, chide me for it.

Troilus. You know now your hostages; your uncle's word, and my firm faith.

Pandarus. 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.

Cressida. Boldness comes to me now, and brings me heart:

:

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

Troilus. Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?
Cressida. 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.

Troilus. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.
Pandarus. Pretty, i' faith.

Cressida. My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me; 'Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kiss:

I am ashamed;-O heavens! what have I done?
For this time will I take my leave, my lord.
Troilus. Your leave, sweet Cressid?
Cressida. Pray you, content you.
Troilus.

What offends you, lady?

Cressida. Sir, mine own company.

Troilus. Yourself.

Cressida. 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.

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.
Troilus. O, that I thought it could be in a woman,
(As, if it can, I will presume in you,)

To feed for aye9 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.
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,2
Want smiles, truth tir'd with iteration,-
As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,

9 Ever.

1 Met with and equalled.

2 Comparison.

As iron to adamant, as earth to the center,
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,

As truth's authentic author to be cited,

As true as Troilus shall crown up3 the verse,
And sanctify the numbers.

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 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 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.

-as false

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 inconstant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between Pandars! say, amen. :

Troilus. Amen.

Cressida. Amen.

Pandarus. Amen.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.-The GRECIAN Camp.

Enter AGAMEMNON, ULYSSES, DIOMEDES, NESTOR, AJAX, MENELAUS, and CALCHAS.

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,

3 Conclude.