Helen. Ay, ay, pr'ythee now. By my troth, Pan. Have you seen my cousin? sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead.

Helen. Let thy song be love: this love will un- Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,

Par. Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love. Propos'd for the deserver! O gentle Pandarus, Pan. In good troth, it begins so:

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, tamne tigers; thinking it harder for our mistress to devise imposi tion 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 limut.

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:

Cres. They say, all lovers swear more perform-Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.
ance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability
that they never perform; vowing more than the per-
fection 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. Well know they what they speak, that speak so wisely.

Tro. Are they 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?

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 inch, chide me for it.

Tro. You know now your hostages; your uncle's word, and my tirm faith.

Pan. Nav, I'll give my word for her too; our kindred, though they be long ere they are wooed, they are enstant, being won: they are burs, I can tell you: they 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?
Gres. 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 night 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

speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue;
, in this rapture, I shall surely speak

thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence, Cinning in dambness, from my weakness draws My very soul of councel: Stop my mouth.

Tro. And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence. 2 Pan. Pretty, 'faith."

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

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 ave2 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!
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,4
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,-
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
As truth's authentic author to be cited,
As true as Troilus shall crown up the verse,
And sanctify the numbers.

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 eities 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
faise

As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,
As fox to lamb, as wolf to heiter's calf,
Pard to the bind, 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 to gether, let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world's end after my name, call them all-Pan dars; let all inconstant men be Troiluses, all false

(4) Comparison. (5) Conclude it,

women Cressids, and all brokers-between Pan-So do each lord; and either greet him not, dars! say, Amen.

Tro. Amen.

Cres. Amen.

Pan. Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber and 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 geer!

[Exeunt. SCENE III-The Grecian camp. Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, 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 Jove
I have abandoned 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 negociations 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. (Exe. Dio. and Cal.
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,

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?
You know my mind, I'll fight no more 'gainst Troy.
Agam. What says Achilles? would he aught
with us?

Nest. Would you, my lord, aught with the general?

Achil

No.

[Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor.
Good day, good day.

Men. How do you? how do you? [Exit Men.
Achil. What, does the cuckold se rn me?
Ajax. How now, Patroclus?
Achil.

Ajax.

Achil. Good morrow.

Ajax.

Good morrow, Ajax.

Ha?

Ay, and good next day too. [Exit 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
What, am I poor of late?
Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with fortune,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,
Must fall out with men too: What the declin'd is,
Show not their mealy wings, but to the summer;
As feel in his own fall: for men, like butterflies,
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:
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 do 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?
Writes me, That man-how dearly ever parted,'
Ulyss.
A strange fellow here
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

Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn'd on The bearer knows not, but commends itself

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;-

(1) An instrument for tuning harps, &c.

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

The present eye praises the present object:
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,

Where they are extended; which, like an arch, re- If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive,

verberates

there are,

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,
While 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 inisers 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:

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.

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.+

Ha! known?

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 a the Greekish girls shall tripping sing,-

Those scraps are good deeds past: which are de- Great Hector's sister did Achilles win;

vour'd

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 trusty 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,2
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.

(1) Detail of argument.
(2) New-fashioned toys.

But our great Ajax 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.
Patr.
O, then beware;
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!

(3) The descent of the deities to combat on ei ther side.

(4) Polyxena.

(5) Friend.

Scene I.

Enter Thersites.

Ther. A wonder!
Achil. What?

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

And I myself see not the bottom of it.

[Exeunt Achilles and Patroclus. Ther. 'Would the fountain of your mind were Ther. Ajax goes up and down the field, asking clear again, that I might water an ass at it! I had rather be a tick in a sheep, than such a valiant [Exit. for himself. ignorance.

Achil. How so?

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

Achil. How can that be?

Ther. Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock, a stride and a stand: ruminates, like a hostess, that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic 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 any ambassador 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.

ACT IV.

Eneas and Servant, with a torch; at the other,
SCENE I-Troy. A street. Enter, at one side,
Paris, Deiphobus, Antenor, Diomedes, and oth
ers, with torches.

Par. See, ho! who's that there?
'Tis the lord Æneas.
Dei.
Ene. Is the prince there in person ?-
Had I so go good occasion to lie long,
As you, prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business
Should rob my bed-mate of my company.
Dio. That's my mind too.-Good morrow, lord
Æneas.

Par. A valiant Greek, Æneas; take his hand :
Witness the process of your speech, wherein
You told-how Diomed, a whole week by days,
Did haunt you in the field.

JEne.

Health to you, valiant sir,
During all question of the gentle truce:
But when I meet you arm'd, as black defiance,
As heart can think, or courage execute.

Dio. The one and other Diomed embraces. Our bloods are now in calm; and, so long, health: Achil. To him, Patroclus: Tell him,-I humbly But when contention and occasion meet, desire the valiant Ajax, to invite the most valorous By Jove, I'll play the hunter for thy life, Hector to come unarmed to my tent; and to pro- With all my force, pursuit, and policy. cure safe conduct for his person, of the magnanimous, and most illustrious, six-or-seven-times-honoured captain-general of the Grecian army, AgaDo this.

memnon.

Patr. Jove bless great Ajax.
Ther. Humph!

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

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

Ther. Humph!

ne. And thou shalt hunt a lion, that will fly
With his face backward.-In humane gentleness,
Welcome to Troy! now, by Anchises' life,
Welcome, indeed! By Venus' hand I swear,
No man alive can love, in such a sort,
The thing he means to kill, more excellently.

Dio. We sympathize:-Jove, let Æneas live,
If to my sword his fate be not the glory,
invite A thousand complete courses of the sun!
But, in mine emulous honour, let him die,
With every joint a wound; and that to-morrow!
Ene. We know each other well.

Patr. And to procure safe conduct from Aga

Ther. If to-morrow be a fair day, by eleven o'clock it will go one way or other; howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me.

Patr. Your answer, sir.

Ther. Fare you well, with all my heart. Achil. Why, but he is not in his tune, is he? Ther. No, but he's out o'tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know not: But, I am sure, none; unless the fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings' on.

Achil. Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.

Ther. Let me bear another to his horse; for that's the more capable2 creature.

Achil. My mind is troubled, like a fountain
stirr'd;

(1) Lute-strings made of catgut.

(2) Intelligent.

To Calchas' house; and there to render him,
For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid:
Let's have your company; or, if you please,
Haste there before us: I constantly do think
(Or, rather, call my thought a certain knowledge,)
My brother Troilus lodges there to-night,
Rouse him, and give him note of our approach,
With the whole quality wherefore; I fear,
We shall be much unwelcome.

That I assure you;
Ene.
Trus had rather Troy were borne to Greece,
There is no help;
Than Cressid borne from Troy.
Par.

The bitter disposition of the time
Will have it so. On, lord; we'll follow you.
(3) Conversation.