I thank ye heartily; so shall this lady,
When she has so much English.

Cran.
Let me speak, sir,
For heaven now bids me; and the words I utter
Let none think flattery, for they 'll find 'em truth.
This royal infant-heaven still move about her!—
Though in her cradle, yet now promises
Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings, 20
Which time shall bring to ripeness: she shall be-
But few now living can behold that goodness-
A pattern to all princes living with her,
And all that shall succeed: Saba was never
More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue
Than this pure soul shall be: all princely graces,
That mould up such a mighty piece as this is,
With all the virtues that attend the good,
Shall still be doubled on her: truth shall nurse
her,

Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her: 30 She shall be loved and fear'd: her own shall bless her;

Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn,
And hang their heads with sorrow: good grows
with her:

In her days every man shall eat in safety,
Under his own vine, what he plants; and sing
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours:
God shall be truly known; and those about her
From her shall read the perfect ways of honour,
And by those claim their greatness, not by blood.
Nor shall this peace sleep with her: but as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, 41
Her ashes new create another heir,

As great in admiration as herself;

So shall she leave her blessedness to one,

59

An aged princess; many days shall see her,
And yet no day without a deed to crown it.
Would I had known no more! but she must die,
She must, the saints must have her; yet a virgin,
A most unspotted lily shall she pass

To the ground, and all the world shall mourn her.
King. O lord archbishop,
Thou hast made me now a man! never, before
This happy child, did I get any thing:
This oracle of comfort has so pleased me,
That when I am in heaven I shall desire
To see what this child does, and praise my
Maker.

I thank ye all. To you, my good lord mayor, 70
And your good brethren, I am much beholding;
I have received much honour by your presence,
And ye shall find me thankful. Lead the way,
lords:

Ye must all see the queen, and she must thank

clear,

They'll say 'tis naught: others, to hear the city
Abused extremely, and to cry 'That's witty!'
Which we have not done neither: that, I fear,
All the expected good we're like to hear
For this play at this time, is only in
The merciful construction of good women;
For such a one we show'd 'em: if they smile,
And say 'twill do, I know, within a while
All the best men are ours; for 'tis ill hap,
If they hold when their ladies bid 'em clap.

10

IN Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of
Greece

The princes orgulous, their high blood chafed,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships,
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war: sixty and nine, that wore
Their crownets regal, from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is
made

To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
The ravish'd Helen, Menelaus' queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps; and that's the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come;

And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge Their warlike fraughtage: now on Dardan plains

The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam's six-gated city,
Dardan, and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,
And Antenorides, with massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Sperr up the sons of Troy.

20

Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits,
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard: and hither am I come
A prologue arm'd, but not in confidence
Of author's pen or actor's voice, but suited
In like conditions as our argument,
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o'er the vaunt and firstlings of those
broils,

Beginning in the middle, starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.

Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are: Now good or bad, 'tis but the chance of war.

30

ACT I.

At Priam's royal table do I sit; And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts, So, traitor! 'When she comes !' When is she thence? 31

Pan. Well, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else.

Tro. I was about to tell thee:—when my heart, As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain, Lest Hector or my father should perceive me, I have, as when the sun doth light a storm, Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile: But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness, Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness. 40 Pan. An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's-well, go to-there were no more comparison between the women: but, for my part, she is my kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her: but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise your sister Cassandra's wit, but

50

Tro. O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,-
When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drown'd,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrench'd. I tell thee I am mad
In Cressid's love: thou answer'st 'she is fair;'
Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,
Handlest in thy discourse, O, that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink,
Writing their own reproach, to whose soft seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell'st
me,

As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her; 60
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.

Pan. I speak no more than truth.
Tro. Thou dost not speak so much.

Pan. Faith, I'll not meddle in't. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, 'tis the better for her; an she be not, she has the mends in her own hands. Tro. Good Pandarus, how now, Pandarus! Pan. I have had my labour for my travail; illthought on of her and ill-thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour.

Tro. What, art thou angry, Pandarus? what, with me?

Pan. Because she's kin to me, therefore she's not so fair as Helen: an she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a black-a-moor; 'tis all one to me.

Tro. Say I she is not fair?

80

Pan. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fool to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and so I'll tell her the next time I see her: for my part, I'll meddle nor make no more i' the matter.

Tro. Pandarus,—

Pan. Not I.

Tro. Sweet Pandarus,

Pan. Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and there an end. 91 [Exit Pandarus. An alarum. Tro. Peace, you ungracious clamours! peace, rude sounds! Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,

When with your blood you daily paint her thus. I cannot fight upon this argument;

100

It is too starved a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus,-O gods, how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he's as tetchy to be woo'd to woo,
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne's love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl:
Between our Ilium and where she resides,
Let it be call'd the wild and wandering flood,
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy and our bark.
Alarum. Enter ENEAS.

Ene. How now, Prince Troilus! wherefore not afield?

Tro. Because not there: this woman's answer sorts,

ΙΙΟ

For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, Æneas, from the field to-day?
Ene. That Paris is returned home and hurt.
Tro. By whom, Æneas?

Ene.
Troilus, by Menelaus.
Tro. Let Paris bleed: 'tis but a scar to scorn;
Paris is gored with Menelaus' horn. [Alarum.
Ene. Hark, what good sport is out of town
to-day!

Tro. Better at home, if 'would I might' were 'may.'

But to the sport abroad: are you bound thither?
Ene. In all swift haste.
Tro.

Come, go we then together.
[Exeunt.

SCENE II. The same. A street. Enter CRESSIDA and ALEXANDER. Cres. Who were those went by? Alex. Queen Hecuba and Helen. Cres. And whither go they? Alex.

Up to the eastern tower,
Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is, as a virtue, fix'd, to-day was moved:
He chid Andromache and struck his armorer,
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harness'd light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw
In Hector's wrath.
Cres.
What was his cause of anger?
Alex. The noise goes, this: there is among
the Greeks

A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him Ajax.
Cres.
Good; and what of him?
Alex. They say he is a very man per se,
And stands alone,

ΙΟ

Cres. So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

Alex. This man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of,

Pan. 'Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.

Cres. To say the truth, true and not true.
Pan. She praised his complexion above Paris.
Cres. Why, Paris hath colour enough.
Pan. So he has.
Cres.

109

Then Troilus should have too much: if she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his; he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose.

Pan. I swear to you, I think Helen loves him better than Paris.

Cres. Then she's a merry Greek indeed. Pan. Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th' other day into the compassed window, -and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin,

Cres. Indeed, a tapster's arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total.

Pan. Why, he is very young: and yet will he, within three pound, lift as much as his brother Hector.

Cres. Is he so young a man and so old a lifter?

129

Pan. But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she came and puts me her white hand to his cloven chin

Cres. Juno have mercy! how came it cloven? Pan. Why, you know, 'tis dimpled: I think his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia.

Cres. O, he smiles valiantly.
Pan.

Does he not?

Cres. O yes, an 'twere a cloud in autumn. 139 Pan. Why, go to, then: but to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus,

Cres. Troilus will stand to the proof, if you'll prove it so.

Pan. Troilus! why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg.

Cres. If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens i' the shell.

Pan. I cannot choose but laugh, to think how she tickled his chin: indeed, she has a marvellous white hand, I must needs confess,151

Cres. Without the rack.

Pan. And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.

Cres. Alas, poor chin! many a wart is richer. Pan. But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laughed that her eyes ran o'er. Cres. With mill-stones.

Pan. And Cassandra laughed.

Cres. But there was more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes: did her eyes run o'er too? 161

Pan. And Hector laughed. Cres. At what was all this laughing? Pan. Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus' chin.

Cres. An't had been a green hair, I should have laughed too.

Pan. They laughed not so much at the hair as at his pretty answer.

170

Cres. What was his answer? Pan. Quoth she, 'Here's but two and fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white.' Cres. This is her question. Pan. That's true; make no question of that. 'Two and fifty hairs,' quoth he, and one white: that white hair is my father, and all the rest are his sons.' 'Jupiter!' quoth she, which of these hairs is Paris my husband?' The forked one,' quoth he, 'pluck't out, and give it him.' But there was such laughing! and Helen so blushed, and Paris so chafed, and all the rest so laughed, that it passed.

6

Cres. So let it now; for it has been a great while going by.

Pan. Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday; think on't.

Cres. So I do.

Pan. I'll be sworn 'tis true; he will weep you, an 'twere a man born in April.

189 Cres. And I'll spring up in his tears, an 'twere a nettle against May. [A retreat sounded. Pan. Hark! they are coming from the field: shall we stand up here, and see them as they pass toward Ilium? good niece, do, sweet niece Cressida.

Cres. At your pleasure.

Pan. Here, here, here's an excellent place; here we may see most bravely: I'll tell you them all by their names as they pass by; but mark Troilus above the rest.

Cres. Speak not so loud.

ENEAS passes.

200

Cres. Can Helenus fight, uncle? Pan. Helenus? no. Yes, he'll fight indifferent well. I marvel where Troilus is. Hark! do you not hear the people cry 'Troilus'? Helenus is a priest.

Cres. What sneaking fellow comes yonder? TROILUS passes.

Pan. Where? yonder? that's Deiphobus. "Tis Troilus! there's a man, niece! Hem! Brave Troilus! the prince of chivalry!

250

Cres. Peace, for shame, peace! Pan. Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece: look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hacked than Hector's, and how he looks, and how he goes! O admirable youth! he ne'er saw three and twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way! Had I a sister were a grace, or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change, would give an eye to boot. 260 Cres. Here come more.

Forces pass.

Pan. Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after meat! I could live and die i' the eyes of Troilus. Ne'er look, ne'er look: the eagles are gone: crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece.

Cres. There is among the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus. 269 Pan. Achilles! a drayman, a porter, a very camel.

Cres. Well, well.

Pan. 'Well, well!' Why, have you any discretion? have you any eyes? do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man?

Cres. Ay, a minced man: and then to be baked with no date in the pie, for then the man's date's out. 281 Pan. You are such a woman! one knows not at what ward you lie.

Cres. Upon my back, to defend my belly;