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. 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. 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-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? To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you 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? [Exit Servant. Pan. Have you seen my cousin? Tro. 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 to those fields, Where I may wallow in the lily beds Proposed 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, 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 with a sprite: I'll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain :-she fetches her breath as short as a new ta'en sparrow. [Exit. Tro. Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom: 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 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 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 loved you night and day For many weary months. Tro. Why was my Cressid, then, so hard to win? But, though I loved you well, I wooed you not; Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws My very soul of council! Stop my mouth. Tro. And shall, albeit sweet music 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 ashamed;-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. 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, Tro. O, that I thought it could be in a woman Might be affronted with the match and weight True swains in love shall, in the world to come, rhymes, Full of protést, of oath, and big compare, If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,- From false to false, among false maids in love, Upbraid my falsehood! when they have saidas false As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth, 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. The advantage of the time prompts me aloud To give me now a little benefit, Out of those many registered in promise, Agam. What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? make demand. Cal. You have a Trojan prisoner, called Antenor, Yesterday took: Troy holds him very dear. Oft have you (often have you thanks therefore) Desired 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 answered 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. Ulys. Achilles stands i'the entrance of his Please it our general to pass strangely by him, If so, I have derision med'cinable, To use between your strangeness and his pride, Agam. We'll execute your purpose, and put on 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? Nes. Would you, my lord, aught with the general? Achil. No. Nes. Nothing, my lord. Agam. The better. [Exeunt AGAMEMNON and NESTor. Must fall out with men too: what the declined is, Hath any honour; but honour for those honours Which when they fall, as being slippery standers, How now, Ulysses? Ulys. Now, great Thetis' son? Writes me, that man-how dearly ever parted, Achil. This is not strange, Ulysses. Till it hath travelled, and is married there Ulys. I do not strain at the position; It is familiar; but at the author's drift: Who, in his circumstance, expressly provesThat no man is the lord of anything (Though in and of him there be much consisting), The voice again; or, like a gate of steel Heavens, what a man is there! a very horse; That has he knows not what. Nature, what things there are, Most abject in regard, and dear in use! How some men creep in skittish fortune's hall, Achil. I do believe it: for they passed by me As misers do by beggars; neither gave to me Good word, nor look. What, are my deeds forgot? Ulys. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes : As fast as they are made, forgot as soon -- Where it may see itself: this is not strange at all. Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours: |