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, 't is but the chance of war.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Troy. Before Priam's Palace.

Enter TROILUS, armed, and PANDARUS.
TRO. Call here my varlet, I'll unarm again:
Why should I war without the walls of Troy,
That find such cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan that is master of his heart,
Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.
PAN. Will this geer ne'er be mended?

TRO. The Grecks are strong, and skilful to their strength Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;

But I am weaker than a woman's tear,

Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skill-less as unpractis'd infancy.

PAN. Well, I have told you enough of this: for my par I'll not meddle nor make no farther. He that will have cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.

TRO. Have I not tarried?

PAN. Ay, the grinding: but you must tarry the bolting. TRO. Have I not tarried?

PAN. Ay, the bolting: but you must tarry the leavening. TRO. Still have I tarried.

PAN. Ay, to the leavening: but here's yet in the wor hereafter, the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking: nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.

TRO. Patience herself, what goddess e'er she be, Doth lesser blench at sufferance than I do.

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?

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.

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

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;
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. if she be fair 't is the better for her; the mends in her own hands.

Let her be as she is:

an she be not she has

TRO. Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus?

PAN. I have had my labour for my travel; ill-thought oc 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 is kin to me, therefore she 's not so far 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 i not an she were a black-a-moor; 't is all one to me.

TRO. Say I she is not fair?

PAN. I do not care whether you do or no. She's a fo to stay behind her father; let her to the Greeks; and sol tell her the next time I see her: for my part, I'll medd: nor make no more in the matter.

TRO. Pandarus,

PAN. Not I.

TRO. Sweet Pandarus,

PAN. Pray you, speak no more to me; I will leave all as !
found it, and there an end. [Earit PANDARUS. An alars
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;

It is too starv'd 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,

For womanish it is to be from thence.

What news, Eneas, from the field to-day?

ENE. That Paris is returned home, and hurt.
TRO. By whom, Eneas?

ENE.

Troilus, by Menelaus.

TRO. Let Paris bleed: 't is but a scar to scorn; Paris is gor'd with Menelaus' horn.

[Alarum.

may."

ENE. Hark! what good sport is out of town to-day!
TRO. Better at home, if "would I might" were 66
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.

Queen Hecuba, and Helen.

CRES. Who were those went by?
ALEX.

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 mov'd:

He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;
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.

CRES. So do all inen; 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; nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: He hath the joints of everything; but everything so out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purblinde. Argus, all eyes and no sight.

CRES. But how should this man, that makes me smile make Hector angry?

ALEX. They say he yesterday coped Hector in the batte and struck him down; the disdain and shame whereof hat ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.

Enter PANDARUS.

CRES. Who comes here?

ALEX. Madam, your uncle Pandarus.
CRES. Hector's a gallant man.

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 c^ -Good morrow, Alexander.-How do you, cousin? were you at Ilium?

CRES. This morning, uncle.

Whe

PAN. What were you talking of when I came? Hector armed, and gone, ere ye came to Ilium?

W

Helen W

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 anger.
PAN. Was he angry?

CRES. So he says here.

PAN. True, he was so; I know the cause too; he 'll lay about him to-day, I can tell them that: and there 's Troilus will not come far behind him; let them take heed of Troilus I can tell them that too.

CRES. What, is he angry too?

PAN. Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the

two.