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. 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; Alarum. Enter ENEAS. Ene. How now, Prince Troilus! wherefore not a-field? Tro. Because not there: this woman's answer sorts,1 For womanish it is to be from thence. 1 Sorts, i.e. suits, fits. VOL. V. 110 SCENE II. The walls of Troy. Enter CRESSIDA and ALEXANDER. Cres. Who were those went by? Alex. Queen Hecuba and Helen. Cres. And whither go they? Alex. Up to th' 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 mov'd: He chid Andromache, and struck his armorer; And, like as there were husbandry3 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 10 A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector; Cres. So do all men,—unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs. Alex. This man, lady, hath robb'd 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 crush'd into folly, his folly sauc'd with discretion: Alex. As may be in the world, lady. Pan. What's that? what's that? Cres. Good morrow, uncle Pandarus. Pan. Good morrow, cousin Cressid: what do you talk of?-Good morrow, Alexander.--How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium? Cres. This morning, uncle. Pan. What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector arm'd and gone, ere ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she? Cres. Hector was gone; but Helen was not up. Pan. E'en so: Hector was stirring early. Cres. That were we talking of, and of his Cres. 'T would not become him, his own's better. Pan. You have no judgment, niece: Helen herself swore th' other day, that Troilus, for a brown favour3-for so 't is, I must confess, -not brown neither,— Cres. I had as lief Helen's golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose.-(Act i. 2. 113-115.) Cres. O yes, an 't were a cloud in autumn. [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 Pan. Quoth she, "Here 's but one 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. "One 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. 182 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 't is true; he will weep you, an 't were a man born in April. Cres. And I'll spring up in his tears, an 't were 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 1 Marvell's, abbreviation of marvellous. Pan. That's Hector, that, that, look you, that; there's a fellow!-Go thy way, Hector! -There's a brave man, niece.--O brave Hector! Look how he looks! there's a countenance! is 't not a brave man! 220 Cres. O, a brave man! Pan. Is 'a not? it does a man's heart good: -look you what hacks2 are on his helmet! look you yonder, do you see? look you there: there's no jesting; there's laying on, take't off who will, as they say: there be hacks! Cres. Be those with swords? Pan. Swords! anything, he cares not; an the devil come to him, it's all one: by God's lid, it does one's heart good.-Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris: PARIS passes. 230 look ye yonder, niece; is 't not a gallant man 2 Hacks, marks of blows, dints. Pan. Where? yonder? that's Deiphobus: -'tis Troilus! there's a man, niece! Hem!-Brave Troilus! the prince of chivalry! Cres. Peace, for shame, peace! 250 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, gothy 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. Cres. Here comes more. Forces pass. 260 Pan. I'll be with you, niece, by and by. Cres. To bring, uncle? Pan. Ay, a token from Troilus. Cres. [By the same token-you are a bawd.] [Exit Pandarus. Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice, He offers in another's enterprise: But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see 310 Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be; Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing: Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing: 1 Discretion, i.e. in its literal sense (discerno), "power of seeing." |